The Soldier and the Doctor: Life and Death
by thesoldiermormont
Summary: "This was only the beginning." A continuation of Mallory Smith's involvement in the MCU, her ongoing friendship with Barnes and her eventual run in with the events of AOU. Tie in to 'The Soldier and the Doctor'. (NOT A SEQUEL)
1. Nightmare

It was three in the morning and Mallory Smith sat on a toilet seat.

The coldness of the ceramic had long since been replaced by the warmth of her bare thighs, no longer bare as she had pulled her pretty pink underwear back on without removing herself entirely from the seat. The pyjama bottoms however lay pooled around her feet; the night was too warm, too stuffy to be wearing thick pants. She had long since finished peeing but she sat still as stone on the toilet seat, waiting, contemplating, _counting _as the seconds faded into minutes.

Unlike her bathroom at her apartment, her childhood home had a decent shower under a reasonably large bathtub. She'd missed having baths. In fact it had been the third thing she'd done after moving back temporarily to her childhood home – the first being crying a lot over the state of her life and the second being sleeping. The toilet was huge and weirdly, comfortable enough for Mallory to sit on and the sink was in the current ruin of a gender-based civil war, the right side a cluster of feminine products in various shades of pink and green, the left a smaller neater row of blue and black masculine ones. A lump in her throat suddenly formed as a grief induced thought invaded her senses. _He'll never get to wear that cologne ever again_. The smell of it would never mix with the scent of her father's skin and envelope her in a hug. She shuddered, suddenly freezing but unable to draw the strength to pull the pants up her legs.

_Stop it _she scolded herself, her eyes finding their way to the drugstore bag and it's contents that lay inside the sink. The patronizingly happy face of the drugstores mascot smiled at her, as she shook the drying pee on the stick and counted down the minutes till she reached three. The instructions insisted on waiting two to three minutes but to be _absolutely sure _she was going to wait three. The stick was face down, the results impossible to see until she turned it over.

This was the only way to do it. She had to keep it secret. Her mother would freak out completely if she had noticed what else inside the drugstore bag when she came back. Her mother had been suspicious in the first place when after almost three days of lying in a fetal position talking only to her and the other practically silent resident of the Smith household she had suddenly announced her intention to go the drugstore and buy some natural herbal remedies to 'help James sleep'. It wasn't entirely a lie; James's new remedy had been taken before he'd went to bed and so far, none of his usual nightmarish screams echoed the halls of the Smith household. She was glad she had gone, both for herself but especially for James. His sickening nightmares gave him headaches the next day and nights filled with pointless sleep. He told her quietly when they'd come back from his big outing to the Smithsonian three days ago that the nightmares made him exhausted. Her true intentions of the drugstore trip had to be hidden and James did need something to help him sleep and this was a compromise. Her mother couldn't know about the test.

There was really no need in telling her mother she reasoned. It wasn't certain anyway that she was actually pregnant. She had just been a couple of days late; well in fact a week late. After the downing of the Triskelion two weeks ago, she had expected her period to show up on the Monday, exactly a weeks anniversary to the Triskelion tragedy. But it had never showed. She'd put it down to stress; stress of planning a funeral, caring for a mother who so obviously was pretending everything was okay, keeping James away from Steve as per James's request, waiting anxiously for Natasha to announce any legal troubles Mallory might have, listening to Steve lament about how he desperately wanted to have even a second look at James to make sure he was okay.

But at the end of the second week when it still hadn't came and Mallory suggested the trip to the Smithsonian, inside in the museum she had saw a woman cradling her huge bump and it had clicked. With worry she had clamped up and thought about it for three days; should she? Shouldn't she? In the end she had made her excuses and gone for it, coming out of the drugstore with a guilty face as if she had just committed a crime in buying natural remedies for a good nights sleep and a pregnancy test.

Swallowing, Mallory reached the final thirty seconds in her countdown and finally it sunk in. How stupidly huge and important the next few moments were for her. In thirty seconds, her life could change forever. One outcome would have her a mother in nine months to a slightly unwanted baby who's only shot at a father was a dead and dangerous lying neo-Nazi. That's if of course she didn't go down the abortion route. Would she do it alone? Could she pluck up the courage to ask her mother to come with her? Could she even do that to her? Mallory didn't think she could ask her family to watch her be responsible for another death when they'd just attended the funeral of a death she was partly responsible for. Another would be better; another would have her destroy the stick, box and bag entirely, wash her hands both metaphorically of the business and literally of the remnants of pee and go back to bed and pretend it had never happened.

And all could be changed by a few chemicals released in her pee made obvious by a few lines. One line meant she was in the clear; two lines meant game over.

Of course she wanted children. Just not right now. Not with this father. Not with this current situation. She couldn't bring a baby in the world when she could barely remember to eat every day. It was unthinkable. And the time was up; she reached thirty. She took a deep breath, stood from the toilet and walked to the sink where she was reflected in the mirror – the t-shirt that belonged to her dead and ex-boyfriend in a dire need of a wash – and turned it over in her hands.

She was silent for a beat, registering the results. One line. She wasn't pregnant, just very late. Relief coursed through her, alongside with the strange bitter tang of disappointment. She put the used stick back in the bag and bundled it all up, opening the cupboard under the sink and stuffing it at the bottom of the bin. The dark wood of the cupboard door blurred as she searched for a nighttime sanitary napkin, anticipating the irony of her uterus to kick in. As she put it in place, binned the remains and rewashed her hands, a choking sob escaped her throat and hot tears fell down her cheeks.

It took ten minutes to calm herself down. The image of the one line on the test was burnt into every corner of her brain, the only thing she could see. Her frame rattled with each howling sound, echoed around the small confines of the bathroom, the sound horrible to her own ears. She tried to be quiet but it was impossible; no matter how much she covered her mouth the sound of something dying would escape and echo around her. She wasn't even sure why she was crying; she didn't want the baby and she was wasting time that she could've spent sleeping or staring into space. But even as she attempted to coax and bully herself out of crying, she couldn't stop.

_Get a grip, Mal_, she hissed at herself as she ran the tap and splashed her face with cold water to reduce the redness. _It's over, you're not pregnant its fine. _

She switched the light off and went back to bed, creeping past James's residence in the guest bedroom and her mother asleep in the big room. She crawled under the covers, shivering and fell into a cold sleep filled with dreams of sharks with cool blue eyes swimming in waters filled with lillies.

In the same house, James Buchanan Barnes lay awake as the floorboards creaked outside his door as someone sneaked past to go to bed.

His eyes burned with half-forgotten memories, as he stared at the cream ceiling and wondered how much could change in such a short space of time. A week ago he'd been the Winter Soldier, wandering from place to place with zero memories and an attachment to a lively doctor who seemed to be the only colour in his monochrome existence. Then his life had exploded into memories that were physically painful to remember and sometimes he forgot where he was. He squeezed his eyes shut and recalled the facts as he always did before he tried to sleep; his name then and now, his titles, where he was.

_James Buchanan Barnes. The Winter Soldier. Sergeant in the army, member of the Howling Commandos. Assassin. Mallory's house._

He opened his eyes to the cream ceiling again and sighed, breathing deeply, in and out. A loud gust of wind blew the drapes of the window swirling, and a rash of goosebumps covered his arms and naked chest. His shirt lay abandoned on the floor, his pants loose on his form as they belonged to Mallory's dad. Her dead dad.

He'd had mixed feelings about attending the funeral. Mallory's hadn't forced him to attend but there had been something pleading in her face that had stayed with him and made him insist on attending. Part of him didn't really want to pay his respects to a man who had direct responsibility over keeping him in captivity but another part wanted to be with Mallory. He had noticed, even when he had been the Soldier, she had strangely seemed to draw some strength from his being near her; on the wasp as they had been airlifted to that Russian prison so long again she had sat a little straighter and looked a little less homesick by just looking at him.  
His suit had been borrowed, another Sampson Smith number which drooped horribly over his frame and the day had been refreshingly cold. Mallory's lovely mother Julia had smiled so kindly when he'd automatically helped her out of the car following the hearse that he knew he'd made the right choice. He closed his eyes and remembered the painful scene for the Smith family; Julia being comforted by her sister as she sobbed noisily through the sermon, Mallory staring forward with her lower lip wobbling attempting not to cry. It was then he had remembered Steve's mother's funeral, _so_ long ago, and his hand had reached out and loosely held hers. Sampson had been cremated, and the wake was at the Smith household where he'd gone to bed early listening to the muffled cries of Mallory in the room near him, his accentuated hearing amplifying the noise painfully.

He wasn't even sure if the Steve memory was real or not, but he did remember it somehow. Steve had that same empty look in his eyes, that determination not to cry in public as they had carried their ceremony forward. It was the same look Mallory had shared. It had triggered the memory. Could looks trigger a memory? It seemed only Mallory could trigger things within him, words or sights or sounds. Was it because he trusted her? Even smells she could bring back. She mentioned vanilla once when she was talking to her mother about a cake and for a moment James swore he was back in his childhood home watching his mother pull something out of the oven with the scent of vanilla in the air.

He returned to the present, to the cream ceiling and the borrowed bed when an aching feeling in his bowels returned. He got off the bed and headed in stealth mode to the toilet, careful not to wake the now sleeping Mallory and Julia whose combined breathing floated through the walls. He did his business and washed his hands, and it occurred to him he had forgotten to brush his teeth and take the herbal remedy Mallory had bought for him before going to bed. He opened the cupboard and searched for the small glass bottle filled with vile smelling and tasting liquid that seemed to have little to no effect on his nightmares. He was about to pull it from behind a bottle of bleach when his eyes fell across the bin.

A happy face logo was printed across a small pink plastic bag. He would've ignored it if not for the way the bag had been carefully folded at the top to prevent whatever was inside to come out. He examined it closer; through the pink plastic the name _Happy Family Pregnancy Test _was almost visible_. _His mind went blank like a memory wipe, as he pulled the box from the bag. A small plastic stick clattered to the bathroom floor. He bent to pick it up, the faint smell of urine assaulting his senses.

As he turned it over with a thick sense of dread, he saw one line across the small plastic screen. He searched almost frantically for the instructions, his heart thudding in his chest, but could not find them anywhere. It didn't say on the stick whether one line meant pregnant or not.

_Was Mallory pregnant? And why did she hide it? _

He felt like was invading her privacy, so he replaced the bag in and hid it even better than she had. He went back to bed without brushing his teeth, feeling a swish of mouthwash was enough. He stopped outside Mallory's door, hand poised to knock. He didn't want to disturb her sleep but he was... concerned about her. Was she okay? Did she need anything? His hand fell and he went back to bed, attempting to focus on his memory recalling tasks but failing, drifting to a needed sleep filled with nightmares of babies with blue eyes and metal arms.

A/N: As said in the summary, this will be a collection of mini fics documenting the time between Captain America: The Winter Soldier and my planned AOU fic. Enjoy!


	2. Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy

It had happened four nights ago. Mallory, wrapped up in her own tale of no pregnancy and period cramps with little time to pay attention to others, was downstairs channel surfing when from upstairs she heard a large thump, as if somebody had fallen over or dropped something. Upon racing upstairs, Mallory found James calling for an ambulance and her mother wheezing, her mother's large wedding photo album on the floor being the source of the noise. Instinctively Mallory slipped into medical mode and began asking rapid fire questions to her mother, who answered between wheezes. Could she breathe? Was anything in pain? When her mother answered that she had chest pain and Mallory deduced she couldn't breathe, she diagnosed a heart attack and went into the ambulance with her, leaving James to hold down the fort.

Not quite. At the hospital when her mother had recovered, the doctor had explained her mother had not a heart attack and that they weren't sure what had happened but they were going to take some tests. Mallory had mused on it as the doctor went to sort some paperwork out for them, and when he'd came she'd interrogated him on the symptoms and what he was doing to sort it out. Mallory had been so wrapped up in her tale that it wasn't until she'd hurried to her mother's room that she realized it was the hospital she used to work at before she was made redundant.

"Have you ordered an electrocardiogram? You haven't even checked her blood pressure. An ARB might lower her blood pressure to an acceptable rate but there's no guarantee-"

"Miss Smith we are doing all we can-"

"Well you're not doing enough! Clearly Chief Williams isn't doing her job. Why else would she hire incompetent doctors-"

"Mallory!" Her mother had remarked sharply, as the doctor narrowed his eyes at her and exchanged glances with the nurse who had just entered the room. "Don't be rude."

Feeling sore at this sudden chastisement, Mallory made a face of disgust at the doctor and sat down in the chair beside the bed. As she did, the nurse and doctor entered a conversation.

She mulled on the symptoms and found herself remembering a day at med school that she had seemingly repressed; her instructor had once came into the lessons with a hangover and as such she had dismissed the class on a "research" topic so she could recuperate. They had all been given a part of the body and tasked to find the strangest condition that could affect it. Mallory's topic was eyes, so she had written an essay detailing the symptoms, characteristics, case studies and treatments of cat eye syndrome, which was an indicator of people who had extra chromosome. She barely remembered the details of her own essay but she remembered her boyfriend's, Liam because of it's sadness. He had been given the heart, and he had written his touching essay on _takotsubo cardiomyopathy_.

"What?" The doctor turned to her almost accusingly. Mallory hadn't realized she'd said her realization aloud.

"It could be _takotsubo cardiomyopathy_." The nurse had frowned with confusion so Mallory continued. "Broken heart syndrome."

"Broken heart- Miss Smith that condition is very rare-"

She remembered proof reading Liam's work and the longer she thought about it the more of the essay she could recall. In fact she could remember a few sentences. _Although commonly perceived as rare, the condition is actually more common than mainstream doctors believe. _

"It's not that rare. Uncommon but not impractical to check for. Call for the cardiologist, she should be able to diagnose it properly."

"She?" Her mother wheezed. Mallory turned and smiled gently at her mother.

"It was Dr. Grant when I was here. Is she still here?"

The doctor exchanged a glance of confusion with the nurse and shook his head. "No, she's taking a maternity leave. We have Dr. Evans though, on loan from a hospital up north. He's every bit as good as Dr. Grant."

Mallory wasn't listening, as her own heart had stopped. She hadn't heard him be referred like that in _years_. Liam loved his title. Her mother met her worried glance and her eyes filled with tears.

"Is that-"

"I think so." Mallory replied. She turned back to the doctor. "Is he... um... quite tall, curly hair, blue eyes?"

_Please don't say yes, please don't say yes-_

"Yeah that's him. You know him?" Mallory nodded, unable to speak. The doctor seemed pleased with this information. "I'll go get him then."

The room was left in silence as the doctor and nurse left to find Liam. Mallory dumped herself into the chair and reached out for her mother's hand. The mutual comfort lead to a hard squeeze and Mallory's mother placed her other hand on top of their grasped hands.

"Honey why don't you go get yourself some coffee, hm?" She sniffed and attempted a smile, achieving the effect of looking heartbroken. "And check on James when your outside, make sure he's still alive and stuff."

"Mom, I can stay. I'm not that weak."

Her mother tilted her head to the side. "No honey. It's not a criticism. With everything-" She stopped and swallowed, as if the words had manifested into something that made them stick in her throat. "-that's happened over the past few weeks... I just can't make you do this. I can do it alone."

"Mom-"

"Go. Bring me some coffee while you're at it."

Mallory laughed through her tears. "No. You've just had a heart scare you silly woman; no way are you getting caffeine."

"Please?"

"No! It's a stimulant."

"God you're so bossy. Wonder where you get that from. And here I was thinking there'd be benefits to having a doctor in the family." The pair laughed and Mallory stood to go, with her mother wiping her eyes on the back of her hands.

"Go. Check on James."

Mallory paced outside at the sound of the ringing tone amongst the living embodiment's of irony; the cancer patients who puffed a pack of cigarettes a day and wondered why their lungs weren't healing and the doctors, who chastised patients on smoking yet did it themselves shamelessly in the parking lot. It had always tickled her, watching them smoke with one hand and jab a finger of blame with the other at some parent who came to the hospital with a smoking related disease.

It was the end of summer and the beginnings of autumn could be felt around her; the air turned crisper with the cold and the hazy heat seemed to replace itself with cold blasts of wind that penetrated the thin jackets everybody had worn throughout the summer. The bottom leaves on the trees began to curl brilliant shades of gold and amber, and the sight of people in thick coats and maybe even scarves if it was a particularly cold day began to be commonplace. It wasn't her favourite time of year; nothing could beat that magical feeling of December, with the constant blaring of the same Christmas songs in the stores as she merrily hunted for gifts for her loved ones, that justification of having a glass of wine at eleven in the morning with the phrase "go on, it's Christmas!", the crap decorations storefronts put out with the limp tinsel and failing lights. Even simple things, like sitting inside with hot chocolate and some crappy film she'd seen about twelve times but still loved, watching the snow fall gently in the street. But there was still something special about it, the transition between the lazy and loose feeling of summer to the tightening of autumn.

As she mulled this over, the ringing tone stopped and the answering machine kicked in, her mother's bright voice announcing the Smith family weren't home. _Where the hell was he? _He couldn't of left the house.

She had to go back inside. It was too cold even with the warmth of the coffee in her other hand and it was fruitless to try ringing the phone again. She'd be home soon.

Her stomach was fraught with tension as she navigated the familiar hallways. Maybe he wouldn't recognize her? Also a fruitless suggestion, as she was pretty much the same on the outside as she had been back when they were together. Maybe a little skinnier though; the stress she had been plagued with recently had her forgetting to eat a few times and a side effect with the loss of the snugness on her now size 10 jeans and sharper cheekbones. On the inside she was different. The Mallory Liam could remember had a sense of direction; the Mallory he'd meet had no clue what the hell she was doing with her life. She came to the door and stepped through, sucking in a deep breath as the air shifted to a tense atmosphere. She had a side view of him, a perfect angle to view him in excruciating detail before he could do the same to her.

His hair was still that shade of ambiguity between brown and ginger but close cropped to his skull like a man of the military. His skin had a vague milky tinge, almost sickly and the bones of his cheekbones and jaw seemed to protrude quite painfully through his paper thin skin. He still had his height but there was none of the stacked muscle he usually had; he was skinny, frail. He looked... ill. But he met her eyes and they were still bright blue and a stoke of fear pierced her heart. _Men with bright eyes and dark hair._ His white cheeks turned red with shame as they seemed to have a shared experience of a flashback of the moment she'd walked in on him putting his dick in her best friend, but his eyes became X-rays too and she began sweating heavily under the glare.

Then the door shut and Mallory looked away, the spell broken. He continued stuttering his words nervously and a quick glance to her mother saw she clearly wasn't listening, her gaze harder than steel.

Mallory's phone buzzed in her pocket. She searched for it conspicuously in her pockets, aware that everyone in the room was looking at her but they all melted away when her phone displayed a text from James from the spare crappy Samsung that she'd found in the back drawer one night.

_Couldn't hear the phone. Was working out. How's Julie?_

It was so stereotypical James, short and curt, to the point, the attitude she'd come to expect from him and despite her situation she smiled at his words. The curtness of his text did not lessen the concern he had for her mother. He loved Julie. It was clear each time he looked at her; a love that had been born out of mutual understanding of heartbreak and on his part a feeling of gratitude he felt he could never repay.

Mallory's mother spoke as if Liam wasn't. "Who is it?"

"James." Mallory replied absently. "Want me to pass on a message?"

"Tell him not to drink all the coffee."

Mallory shot her a glare. "Mom."

"I'm kidding. Tell him I miss him."

Liam continued after a moments silence as if they hadn't spoken.

_She's okay. She said she misses you. How are you?_

His reply was quick and short, sweet to the point of diabetic:

_I'm fine. How are you?_

Mallory put the phone back in her pocket, unable to answer without telling him everything. James exchanged a glance between the two, all the while talking about beta-blockers and rest for Julie when they got home. He seemed unwilling to look Mallory directly in the eye. Mallory felt self-conscious in her jeans and t-shirt, her face reddening as she imagined him being able to hear her heart thudding at a thousand miles an hour. Despite _everything _that had happened, she still felt those invisible strings of attachment pulling her towards him like a moth to a flame. There was something in Mallory's genetic makeup, something hardwired into her DNA which made her unable to let anyone she had loved go. She had exactly three serious lovers in her life and all she could with great honesty claim she still loved. All three she still held candles for; a vigil to be honest for the last two.

"-to worry about but I'm sure Mal – I mean your daughter – can look after you just as well as we could. Does that sound right? To you I mean?"

He looked at her in the eyes. She swallowed nervously, mouth suddenly dry and nodded. He went back to his mother's chart, all Dr. Evans with all seriousness and gravelly voice.

"Miss Smith may I talk to you outside just for a moment?" He said it carelessly, and Mallory became convinced that it had something to do with her mother's health and nothing that had happened between them. Her mother shook her head but Mallory shrugged and followed him outside.

The moment they stepped into the hallway however, Liam's gaze softened and he looked at Mallory with such pity she wanted to vomit. As she wrestled with the bile induced thoughts, they stayed silent for a moment.

"Hey." His voice was annoyingly soft. "It's been a while."

She wanted to slap his sudden sharp cheekbones. "Whatever. What did you want?"

Mallory tried to sound cold and uninterested but her voice was too high pitched and off to get the tone right. She winced inwardly, but Liam seemed to understand.

"I just wanted to talk if I'm honest. I haven't seen you since..."

The sentence just hung in the air, unfinished and he wasn't willing to complete. However the end part also hung silently in the air. _Since I slept with your best friend on your birthday. _

"August 2nd if I remember correctly. You know. _My birthday_." She had refused to give him his things face to face or give him a chance to explain. Her father had sorted that all out. She felt an unwanted pang of grief.

It was his turn to wince. "Yeah. Look Mal, I-"

"Save it. Please. I have so much more on my mind right now than to listen to this bullshit."

He tilted his head and with the soft gaze, it would've looked sincere. But Liam's face was perpetually set to smug so it came off as patronizing.

"I was just gonna say I'm glad you've moved on." He was prompted by her look of confusion. "With this James character. I'm assuming anyway-"

A burst of laughter cut him off.

"You think he's my boyfriend?" _HA! I hope you're jealous as fuck, he's way more attractive than you. _She shook her head of the sudden, ridiculous thoughts. "Why?"

"You mentioned him-"

"Just because I mention some guy it means I'm dating him? And anyway why the fuck does it matter to you?"

"Mal-"

"Because last time I heard, you had shit all to do with my life since you decided to sleep with Danni. In my bed. On my birthday. You remember Danni? Your wife?"

He was silent. "We're getting divorced."

She hated that fact that a small part of her was pleased, and another small part felt sympathetic.

"And I should care why? You're nothing to me. You are just my mom's doctor, nothing more, nothing less. And speaking of-" She turned to go.

His hand snatched out and grabbed her elbow, hauling her back gently. She whipped her head around, her glare hot enough to melt steel, expecting some self pitying statement that she would hate him and herself for pitying.

"I heard about your dad." Was his surprising words. "I'm so... so sorry."

And suddenly she was in tears.

"Let go." She pulled against his arm, feeling weak for starting to cry. He hadn't seemed to notice her tears, lost in memory lane.

"Mal I know he meant a lot to you. He meant a lot to me as well. I remember the weekend we spent at the coast-"

"Let go of me." She didn't want to reminisce about her dead dad to her ex. She just wanted to go home. He carried on as if she hadn't spoken.

"- and I knew he didn't particularly like me but _God _I wanted to impress him so much and we just got talking about fishing and next thing I know we're like best friends. He was such a great guy. He could be so funny sometimes. And he taught me everything I know about fly fishing. The coast was-"

She yanked hard, and almost went flying into the door. "_I said let go of me!"_

Her hand came out, slapped him hard, the product of a long stewing hatred and desire. He was stunned and both of them stood their breathing heavily as if they'd gone for a round on her bed. She used the hand she slapped him with to wipe her tears, and she disappeared back into the room and tried not to show how upset she was to her mother.

A/N: Schools been riding my ass like a bitch. Didn't even get the chance. Hope you enjoyed this!


	3. Instant Gratification

Mallory Smith lay in the bed, her heart rate slowly returning to normal after some pretty vigorous sex. Her bedmate beside her sighed, his skinny chest heaving so hard she was sure he'd break, and then ran a hand through his auburn curls and down his tightly cropped stubble. It was November now and although both parties had been previously sweating, the chill of the November air reached them through the cheap windows of his apartment cooling them nicely.

"I gotta say, Mal. You haven't changed one bit."  
She didn't appreciate this. Sure enough she liked him for his cock but the moment he opened his mouth and started talking she just wanted to leave. She was sweaty, sticky from the days crimes and there was nothing left in her to listen to this.

"Whatever." She grumbled, getting up from the bed. Her dress, a sexy and tight little crimson number which lay tangled with his socks and underwear, was a socially unacceptable type of crumpled but she didn't care, pulling it over her head sans underwear. There was rustling as she went on an hunt for her undergarments, and when she stood up from bending over he was staring at her with a stupid smile on his stupidly good looking face.

"What?"  
"Why do you always leave straight away?" Liam did it again, running a hand through his auburn curls, mussing them up in a cute just-been-fucked way.

"Why'd you think? I'm fucking my ex-fiancée in an attempt to make me feel better about my boyfriend and father's death and to make you feel better about your divorce." She took another cursory glance around the room. "Have you seen my bra?"  
"I think it's in the kitchen somewhere." Mallory rolled her eyes and tried to ignore the humdrum monotone of his voice. "Death of a boyfriend? Has this James guy died or something?"  
"Not that it's any of your business-" She began sharply. "- but James is not my boyfriend and he is very much alive. He is a friend who is living with us. That boyfriend is different."  
"Todd?"

"Have you been stalking me since we broke up?" Todd was a flash in the plan rebound after Liam and she'd been a sexual Sahara desert till Rumlow was assigned to make her love him.

Liam laughed, a sound which would've drawn chills down her spine. "No. I just heard things that's all."  
"Whatever." She repeated. She padded barefoot through his bedroom and down the hallway into the kitchen, where sure enough she located her bra amongst the blankets on the sofa in which they'd had sex on, and amongst the numerous wine bottles. Mallory yanked the top of her dress down to shimmy into the bra, then pulled the dress demurely back up, aware of the fact that if the neighbour happened to walk by he'd see her boobs. She would need to go to the toilet to... clean up a little after it since she'd went to his without underwear (she was aware of her lack of class the night before). Since the hospital, her mother had come home with Liam's new number, and a passed on message for her to call him. A few weeks and the loneliness had gotten too much for her. Sure, her mom was great but not for talking to about deep stuff. And she was frightened James would just back off and yell for her mom, or look at her as if he wasn't aware she spoke English which he seemed to do a lot. So she had called Liam, entered his home and found a few hours of solace with another lonely soul who knew her well.

Well more like most of the night. It was four am now and she hadn't done so much exercise of the carnal kind since a 'welcome home' night for Rumlow after one of his HYDRA missions.  
Returning to the bedroom, Liam was out of bed tugging his grey boxers up his hips and Mallory found herself remembering how he didn't like to lie in bed naked. He looked at her chest and smiled lecherously.

"Find your bra?" He asked, getting back into bed.  
"Fuck off."  
She sat on the edge of the bed and aimed her foot for her heels, lifting them up to amuse herself.

"So who was it?"  
"Who was who?"

"The boyfriend."  
Mallory sighed. "Does it matter? It's ancient history."  
"I wanna know."  
"Why? Does it make you jealous that I've actually gone on an had a proper adult relationship with someone other than you? Are you that vain?" She left out the part when he was assigned to love her.

Liam nodded. "Yes it does. Assuming you loved him more than you loved me."  
"Assuming correctly." Mallory found herself lost in the memory of Rumlow's eyes, sighing at his touch and words. "He was... different."  
"It must've been hard." He said and Mallory looked at him, surprised at how gentle his voice was and how genuine it was. "Losing your dad and your boyfriend so close together."

Mallory swallowed and couldn't help herself. "Same day."  
"Wha- same day? They died on the same day?" His voice was incredulous. "How?"

She sucked a deep breath in and thought about it. Natasha had warned her of curious people who'd reviewed the footage and who wanted to know why such a lowly doctor was present at the Triskelion disaster and Natasha had told her to say as little as possible to anyone. But this was Liam right? She was about to believe she could trust him till she remembered the birthday incident.

"I don't wanna talk about it."  
"Was it an accident or something-"  
"Liam, for god's sake just drop it. I don't like talking about my dead boyfriend or dead dad just-" She sighed and gripped the edge of the bed, focusing her breathing, feeling the steady pull on an oncoming panic attack weigh her chest down. "-drop it. Okay?"  
He'd sat up in his concern and his hand was half-out to pat her in a comforting way. However noticing her annoyance he dropped his hand reluctantly and sighed.

"Move in with me."  
Mallory looked at him. The panic in her chest was subtracted by sudden shock, which caused her to stare at him as if he was a intriguing piece of artwork before breaking into sudden laughter.

"Are you insane?"  
"I'm serious." His face was deadly straight.

She laughed again, all of a sudden unsure. "Would that really be a good idea?"  
He moved closer to her, his eyes fixing hers and pinning her onto the bed in the most hypnotic of ways. He gestured around the room then to her.  
"I mean look at how easy we slipped back into our old ways, hm? You can't tell me you hated every second you were with me, can you?"  
She looked away guiltily, giving the game away.

"Just think about it. I'm getting divorced, your going through a hard time what with your mom and everything else so maybe... maybe getting away from it all might help."  
The temptation was too much. He had captivated like he had all those years and she hated herself for being so weak and falling into his arms like the most one-dimensional of women. The world had revealed itself to be even bigger and frightening of proportions and her own world had changed drastically. But Liam was a fixed point, an element of familiarity who hadn't changed and she couldn't deny how nice it had been, to loose herself in someone else for a few hours. It was like reading a novel she'd read a thousand times before after a long time away from it. The chapters were familiar but each page held a smaller component of change, of rediscovery. She'd enjoyed rediscovering him.

Mallory sighed and gave in. "I'll think about it."

It was November now and James was on the same position he'd been in for the last six hours; blanket half across his legs, remote beside him, eyes fixed to the screen. Currently the opening titles to his new favourite addiction were playing and the complex fantasy world of Westeros had him engaged for the day. Mallory had suggested it after his list of crash-course pop culture had ran out. The list itself consisted of what she considered to be important films, albums and TV that would give him a particular insight into the world of today if he ever chose to leave the house and enjoy a conversation with anybody other than her mom and her. He'd particularly enjoyed _Star Trek_, a fanciful affair that had held a certain type of optimism about the future that other films set ahead of time had lacked. He'd had the time to power through the three pages. All he had nowadays was time.

The show itself was marginally better than he'd expected and he still could never get over the entire affair. TV in his days was rare and rarer still were fancy effects but in the future it had been turned into a beautiful and stylistic way to communicate what could only be described as art. The dragons, wolves and complex politics intrigued him, and despite the frequent sexual scenes he'd found himself forming a very unusual attraction to the beautiful woman that played the silver haired dragon queen and a thirst for her intriguing story.

"Who's the woman who plays the dragon queen?" Despite it being a question he'd wanted answered, it was not the question that was burning on his lips, bubbling his brain.

Mallory looked up from the book she was absorbing – _The House of Silk_ – and made a 'hmm' noise.

"Uhm... I'll google it." She produced her phone from nowhere and James waited a few moments. "Emilia Clarke. She's brunette in real life."  
"Brunette?"  
"Wig. Why'd you ask?"  
"No reason."  
He fell silent as did the room as the theme ended. He could feel Mallory's eyes boring into him, but when he turned she was grinning at him. He was glad even if she was so obviously teasing him. She hadn't had a cause to smile over the past few weeks, what with that negative pregnancy and the run in with the ex-boyfriend. She didn't even tell him about it. James had only found out when her mother had returned home from the hospital and mentioned it.

"Do you like her or something?"  
"No." He answered too quickly. She laughed.

"Yes you do! I can tell, you've gone red."  
He didn't want to indulge in her childish games that were fit for a school yard but when he felt his cheeks beginning a slight burn, he couldn't help himself.

"Have not." He amended quietly.  
"Have too!" Her voice was loud and filled with a smile.  
He was embarrassed. And he was glad. He hadn't felt such a human emotion in a while. He only recalled being embarrassed twice when he was the Soldier; once when he missed a shot on an assassination attempt, an incident he would never talk about, and the other that night after the one in the safe house with Mallory. And that was another instinct, primal, dark and dangerous. She had cried and laid her head on his shoulder and gone to sleep and had been vulnerable next to him. And trusted him. And she'd been wearing nothing for but her underwear. It hadn't made him embarrassed at the time; he'd only felt something awaken inside of him that had for so long felt dormant. It was later that the embarrassment came because he'd stayed awake that entire night and wrestled with his thoughts. Grappling with himself, the two new versions and upon post-memory recovery, an older one. He wondered what would've happened if he'd woken her up...

But those thoughts were the mere childish ramblings of a man who was not whole. Mallory was his friend, first and foremost and more than he deserved. He could not upset the balance. Especially now.

He decided to start gently. "Mal?"  
"Hm?" She'd returned to her novel and was distracted.

"I wanted to ask you something."

Brown eyes met his and looked worried. He saw she scanned him quickly as if assessing for any type of external injury when the real turbulence was in his head.

"What?"

"Where were you last night?"  
He'd noticed it only because of his nightmare. A lesser one than normal, allowing him to wake in the breathless dark with merely a gasp. He did what he usually did after a nightmare; push-ups, reps and kept his heart rate alive with quick sweat sessions before sneaking downstairs for something to drink before going back to bed. Only breaking his normal routine downstairs was the sound of Mallory sitting on the steps last night, clutching her mobile and a pair of heels, softly crying. He went to go and comfort her but the moment he plucked up the courage she'd turned and went back upstairs. He saw a glimpse of her before she disappeared into her room; she was wearing a very short, very tight red dress and her hair was curled perfectly down her back. Her eyes seemed very black.

At his question Mallory turned very pale and looked down at the novel with a sudden interest. "I wasn't out last night."  
"Yes you were." He didn't comprehend why she was lying to him; his senses were perfect. No one could lie to him and especially not someone who he'd known for a while.

She didn't answer, pulling her lower lip between her teeth. As was his custom, he fell silent waiting for her eventual outburst.

Instead he got reasonable Mallory, who eyed him steadily and said rather casually, "I just went out for a bit. I didn't want to worry Mom so I sneaked out. Came back late, fell over on the stairs and went up after a few minutes."  
"Who were you out with?"  
"A few friends." She was lying. She didn't have any friends, apart from perhaps Natasha and that man who'd worked on his arm back in the Bunker. And he hadn't seen Natasha since pre-memory fragmentation, and he was sure Mallory hadn't seen neither since then as well.

"Anyone I know?"

"No."  
"Where did you go?"

She snapped finally. "Just fucking out! God. What the hell is this, anyway, an interrogation? I'm allowed to leave the house without you, you know it's the not the fucking forties."  
And then her face went red with shame as he looked down, lost in a landslide of forgotten memories. James knew she hadn't meant it but it still stung, the casual reference to the time he had lived and died in and the time he'd forgotten. She put the book down and moved closer to him, laying a soft hand on his arm which for once he didn't flinch away from.

"I didn't... I didn't mean that. Seriously. Look at me, James" His eyes reluctantly met hers and he saw how softly she was staring at him.

"I'm just... worried. That's all." _I'd hate to think of you out there, alone and scared again. _The negative pregnancy test still weighed heavily on his mind, and he still hadn't plucked up the courage to ask about. Mallory sighed and held his attention in her dark eyes.

"I... I was out but not with a friend. I don't wanna tell you because I'm frightened you'll judge me."  
"Judge you?" How could he judge her? Mallory one of the few non-judgemental persons he had ever met frightened he, as in an ex-assassin, as in an ex-HYDRA agent would judge her? And then he realized. She meant she was 'out with someone'. As if he'd been allowed a peek inside that brain of hers, he conjured up the image of the unknown ex-fiancée who had haunted her like a ghost. "You were with Liam."  
Her cheeks coloured again. "Please don't look at me like that."  
"I'm not looking at you like anything." He defended, even though he knew he was.

She scrubbed her face in her hands and fixed her eyes on the coffee table. "He makes me feel... I don't know, I don't know how to explain it. I was lonely, I suppose and I was thinking about Him-" The stab in her voice alluded to Rumlow, the HYDRA agent assigned to sway her to their thinking who she had loved with her heart. "- and he gave me his number when I was at the hospital for Mom and I called him and things just happened."  
He wondered how long. He wondered how often. He wondered if they'd engaged in coitus and how frequent or if they'd just talked. Rediscovering relationships was a complex and intricate task for a man who had spent the best part of seventy years being alone and romance was an added factor he didn't understand. He wondered if Bucky, the soldier with an eye for women, had ever encountered a relationship like that, a woman who he'd endured for so long their every contour became familiar to him, their every expression held the meaning that he could understand.

Instead he said, "Why were you crying?"  
"I felt... dirty. Instant gratification, it sounds pretty good but it feels awful. At the time – well to be honest I should say times because this isn't the first time it's happened – in the moment it was exactly what I needed but after the 'glow' wore off... I just wanted a shower."  
He stayed silent for a while, processing this new information and Mallory took his silence for something else. "Grossed you out, huh?"  
"No."  
"I get it if you think of me differently."  
"I'd hate to see you get hurt, that's all." He said it immediately, aggressively, almost furiously.  
She stared at him for a long time, as if shocked by his outburst and swallowed hard. "I know he's just using me for sex to feel better about his divorce." He winced a little at the casual talk of sex – that would've never happened in his time. "He talks about us getting back together though."  
James was interested both for Mallory's sake and his own, as he was living vicariously through her to learn about how to do romantic relationships and relationships in general. He raised an eyebrow at her to motion for her to continue.

"I don't know. I don't think I'm ready for that yet. And I don't think going back to him is that productive. He asked me to move in with him."  
James' back straightened instantly; his hackles rising. "He what?" His voice was steel.

"Yeah." She didn't seem to notice, looking into the distance almost dreamily into the distance. _Obviously fantasizing about him. _She'd be a social pariah back in his day. And he mentally scolded and praised himself, for remembering such a detail and for even thinking about it about the woman who had saved him.

He was nodding silently and turning the TV back on with Mallory's eyes still fixed to him. He could barely recall what happened in the episode, his mind weighing heavily with her personal life.

He barely even paid attention to the dragon lady.

A/N The fact that both of Mallory's stories are still getting attention despite my shitty time management skills continues to absolutely astonish me . You are all awesome. Seriously. Love you all.


	4. Rum and Coke (And Feelings)

It was Christmas Eve, and Mallory Smith was leaning over her kitchen table squinting into the transparent void of vodka when someone called her name.

"Mal!" Her mother staggered slightly into the kitchen, her cheeks bright with false Christmas cheer and rum, "You're taking forever pouring those drinks."

"Sorry. Got lost in thought. What was the order again?"  
"Two rum and cokes, one triple vodka, a round of shots and whiskey."

"Riiiiight." She extended the word in her mouth, her teeth feeling hard in her mouth like they were digging into her gums. "Right. I can do that."

Her mother tumbled over to her and placed her hand comfortingly on her shoulder, staring deep into her eyes as if trying to look for something. "I'll get James."

"I don't need him."

The statement was unusually sharp and spoken with clarity, despite her words clouded with the mist of authentic Jamaican rum. James had been annoying her lately. Not because he was acting out of character, but because he was too into the whole cold, standoffish persona he'd developed since being given back his memories. Usually Mallory could have a tiny bit of back and forth with him, or even the simplest feeling of warmth from him that had come from their… misadventures together. However, for some reason he was being extremely cold to her. And it wasn't even her who had noticed; it was her mother who had asked if they'd had an argument.

But tonight Julie had clearly not remembered, because she clapped Mallory on the shoulder and said, "Shut up! I'll go get him."

Mallory waited, gathering glasses and various bottles and filling up the spirit measures. Before she could add the soft drink, a voice alerted her to his presence.

"Hey. Your mom said you needed help?"

He had creeped in with that unnatural, super-soldier tread but it didn't make her jump with surprise like normally; she was used to it now. Without looking up, as she poured out coke to balance the rum, she sighed.

"Yeah. I said I didn't need you but whatever."

His soft tread followed where she was standing, and before she could react he had placed his hand very near hers to lean against the bench.

"What do you need?"

From where she was slightly leaning over, she saw his red plaid shirt covered arm, the hand he used to rest against the bench being the metal one which stretched out against the cool marble and drummed casually. They moved like real fingers, the metal scales rippling with each movement. It had been explained to her how the arm worked, the chip in his brain which allowed him to move it like a real arm and how it had been developed over the years. However seeing the movement up close, it was hypnotic and odd to watch, because the hand merely looked human but coloured silver and metal. Forgetting her current grudge, she took his metal hand suddenly and with a soft voice asked a question which she hadn't realized she wanted too.

"Can you feel with it?"

She finally looked up, and met his cool eyes which were surprisingly soft instead of the normal harsh glare she expected. He wore his own clothes, bought with Mallory's money, a red shirt, white t-shirt and black jeans. His boots were his own, the combat boots he'd worn in the Russian forest but cleaned of mud. Despite their obvious combat purpose, they melted in with his grunge look matched pretty well with his long hair pulled from his face.

The sudden movement and question took him surprise, but he answered quickly all the same. "No. But I can… remember how it felt. So it's like I feel it.

There was a beat of silence, as Mallory absent mindedly caressed each finger, the cool metal causing confusion in her drunken cloud as she expected a warm hand.

"Was that too much of an odd explanation?"

"No. I get it. Is it a nice feeling?"

Again, he was taken surprise by the question and after an even longer pause of silence he nodded. She spent another moment with his hand in hers, then remembered her purpose and put it down.

"Hey I've been meaning to ask; can you actually… like… get drunk?"

"Like you right now?" Mallory laughed loudly at him.

"I'm not drunk."

His cool stare said otherwise, then he actually said, "No. I can't get drunk."

"Sucks."

She finished the drinks, then with James's actually appreciated help carried them into the bustling living. Most were relatives she hadn't seen for years, their faces and names becoming muddled under the influence of alcohol. The only two who were really of note were Susan, who was Mallory's auntie, and Brie, who was her auntie's wife and currently taking her turn at the traditional game of charades at the Smith house on Christmas Eve.

"Is it a film?"

Mallory's mother accepted her drink with a thanks, before yelling, "You're supposed to do it beforehand you idiot!"

Brie hooted with laughter, accepted her drink and took a swig before motioning that yes, it was a film. She acted out the movie, which had two words, and Mallory and James sat down together. They were packed together tightly on the sofa, their knees touching each other. Mallory crossed her legs, but it merely made her press even tighter against him. She hoped he didn't mind as there was no space, and she was pleased to note he didn't really shift all that uncomfortably.

"The Usual Suspects!" Her cousin beside her yelled.  
"Two words, Jensen! Learn to count." Someone yelled back. The room erupted with laughter, James's mouth quirking with a very small smile and Mallory put her arm sympathetically on her cousin's shoulder.

"'The' doesn't count." Her cousin said, protesting his argument. "Is it something like that movie? Like a crime/gangster thing?"  
Brie nodded enthusiastically. Mallory leaned forward to take a drink, tugging the hem of her dress up as it was exposing the tops of her breasts.

"The Untouchables." Mallory yelled, after swallowing her the mouthful. Brie shouted with delight that she had won and returned to her seat.

"Your turn!" Brie said, sitting on the arm of the chair that Susan sat at, her arm going around her wife.

Mallory sighed but before she could stand, her phone lit up on the table beside her. She'd been ignoring it all day, hundreds of texts from distant relatives and even some forgotten friends, and even more from Liam who seemed to want to hookup on Christmas day because he had no morales, no friends and was probably drink. However, the picture was that of a Black Widow spider, the name Natasha Romanoff so she had to answer it.

She put her hand on her cousin next to her, smiling, "You can take this turn. Maybe you'll learn how to play properly."

Mallory half-staggered, half-strutted to the front porch. It was almost eleven, the moon high in the sky and the stars unnaturally bright. Across the road, the neighbours had decorated their front with twinkling fairy lights that sang and splashed colours on Mallory's complexion, turning her papery skin violet and gold. Noises from around the usually quiet block spoke of gatherings, family and friends getting together to celebrate the Yuletide festivities. There weren't really many young kids round her place, which was a shame as she'd loved to a small child in the neighbours window, bright cheeks and eyes, staring at the moon looking for a sleigh pulled by reindeer. The thought was bitter-sweet. She sat on the porch, the cold stone bleeding into her bare thighs when her dress rode up slightly. She cleared her throat before answering.

"Hey."

"Hi." Natasha's voice came over deep, and surprisingly sober. "Happy Christmas Eve."

"Yeah! Happy Christmas Eve. How's things?"

"Fine. What about you?"  
Usually Natasha called with updates on any legal problems, or progress on Steve's hunt for James – updates she listened to with one hand between her teeth, worrying the nail away in case Natasha ever gave the news that she was aware James was living with her. She never really did the whole small talk thing.

"Good. I was just… wondering how you were."

"I'm great. Why wouldn't I be?"

Natasha paused for a while, and Mallory found herself hearing a glass clink with ice over the line, and Natasha sipping something.

"What you drinking?"

She answered this one quickly. "Vodka."

Mallory laughed, suddenly feeling the chill of the outdoors on her rum warmed skin.

"You don't sound drunk. Must be that Russian blood. I drink vodka and I'm floored."

"Lightweight. And that's awfully stereotypical." Mallory knew she was smiling.

"Hey. I'm drinking rum so going by my own rules I'm obviously Jamaican."

"You are so obviously Jamaican." Natasha laughed, then said with thought. "I'm sure rum actually originated from China."

"Whatever smarty-pants. So what's up?"

There was a pause. Then she heard a very deep sigh.

"Well… Steve's out giving homeless people a hot meal like he does every year, Clint's with his wife and all my other friends are dead so I was wondering if you wanted to do something."

She was slightly more tipsy then she let on, and she had practically drunk-dialled Mallory. Lonely. Natasha Romanoff was lonely, and it made Mallory want to cry. When Mallory swallowed, she felt more sober. The world around her dimmed slightly and became colder, and a sudden swell of sympathy bubbled in her veins.

"I'm actually out at a party right now." As she was about to give the address, the door opened behind her and James stepped out, a visual reminder of why Natasha couldn't be at her house right now. Though it killed her, as the woman had practically opened herself up in a way that meant she trusted Mallory, Mallory had to admit that James came first. Although he was being cold and weird, he was still her priority.

So she forced herself to say, "But it's a family party. Wouldn't really be any chance to get wild like I'd like. I'm so sorry Natasha. Maybe New Years?"

There was a pause, and in the pause James sat down beside her and waited for her to finish her phone call.

Natasha finally spoke. "It's fine. Honestly."

"I just… you know I would if I-"  
"New Years sounds good. Really, Mallory you don't have to explain yourself. I'll be fine."

Mallory's eyes misted over as they said their goodbyes. When Natasha hung up, Mallory covered her hand with her face and felt herself beginning to cry. Damn rum.

A light hand went around her shoulders, and James sat quietly as she sobbed.

"Are you… alright?"

_Do I look alright? _Mallory wanted to hit him, but instead she raised her head and decided impulsively to tackle all her problems at once.

"Why are you being so weird?"  
"What?"

"You. You're being weird. You're not talking to me at all, you haven't looked at me in the eye in days. What's wrong? I thought we were friends."

There was a pause. James turned his face toward the moon, taking the hand off her back and putting it in his lap. He seemed to draw himself tighter to his body, his frame retracting yet his face remained with a crease of concern. He wiped at a non-existent patch on his boots, and let out a very small sigh.

"I didn't think you considered me a friend."  
"What?"

"I didn't think you considered me a friend." He repeated, and without looking at her, began to elaborate. "I always thought you saw me as… a burden, who you happened to have a little bit of history with."  
Her throat closed up. Her palms became sweaty and suddenly she was uncomfortable, her shoes becoming so interesting all of a sudden.

"How… how could you think that?" It seemed impossible to comprehend that after all they had been through for some reason, James still didn't see them as friends.

"I guess I just… assume the worst of people. And your behaviour says otherwise." He finally looked at her and in the darkness his eyes were black, and sparkling with sadness. "You ask me to share everything I'm feeling with you. Yet you don't tell me anything."

"Yes I do." The accusation stung.

"No you don't."

"I told you about Liam."

"Only because I forced it out of you. I don't remember much about… my friends but I do remember how friends work." He swallowed tightly then seemed to force it out. "Friends tell each other things."

"I know friends tell each other things. You know everything about me."

He rubbed his hands on his jeans and Mallory was perplexed. What did he want to know? Why was he so nervous? She frowned, then sighed.

"James… if there's something you want to ask, go ahead." She turned slightly, placing her slightly sweaty and shaking hand on his arm. James didn't move when he touched her, and looked up to the moon again.

"The pregnancy test."  
Her blood ran cold. How had he seen it? When had he seen it? God, why hadn't she disposed of it properly? No one was supposed to know. Who had he told? The words bubbled at her lips but all she could do was stare dumbly at him, as if he had suddenly slipped back into speaking Russian.

"Is it… true? Are you pregnant?"

"No." The situation seemed resolved, as James relaxed under her palm and Mallory felt lighter, yet weaker. "No I wasn't pregnant."

He was silent, and Mallory guessed the cogs in his mind were desperately turning, attempting to figure out the right type of phrase that was neutral but good or bad to estimate whether or not she was disappointed or pleased with the result.

"I didn't want it." She said, her voice quiet. Then she remembered how she'd felt on the day, and corrected her statement. "I think. I think I didn't want it."

James had grown very quiet, nodding only at her words but here he said, "I'm… glad. Not that you wouldn't make a wonderful mother it's just… the dad."

That was all he needed to say. His words conjured images of Rumlow but she forced them from her brain. They stared up at the sky together, and inside the Smith household both James and Mallory heard a sudden clink of glasses, and 'Little Drummer Boy' start up on the stereo. Mallory checked her phone, and smiled, feeling the last dregs of her tension evaporating at the sight of the time.

"Hey." She said, when the screen glowed telling her of the time, "It's been Christmas Day for eleven minutes."

She loved Christmas. The air grew sharper, and instead of going back into the packed living room, she drew closer to James and put her head on his shoulder.

"Merry Christmas, James."

The reply was soft, but meaningful. "Merry Christmas, Mallory."

A/N: I'm the worst. I'm the worst person to ever walk this earth for waiting so long to give an update. I am sorry. Thank you for reading, my very patient and wonderful readers.


	5. Flirting

James was in the house by himself. He'd been flicking through channels, wondering with these 200+ channels why on earth they hadn't put anything decent on. Mallory was out grocery shopping, as unofficially James wasn't allowed out the house in case anybody recognized and Julie, well… Julie was out drinking with her friends. At eleven am.

He was watching some failing comedy show on Fox when he heard the door knock. Sighing, James stabbed the pause button and searched the house for his baseball cap to hide his face. All the while, the door was knocking and knocking, someone urgently tapping the wood to be let into the house. James found the baseball cap in the kitchen, and scooped his hair into it before wandering to the door and opening it, positioning himself so his left arm was obscured from view, as he hadn't had the chance to shrug on a hoodie.

"Uh, hey." The man on the doorstop faltered when he saw him. "Is Mallory home?"

James glanced him over; he had short auburn hair, high cheekbones and bright blue eyes. His skin had vague milky tinge and he seemed emancipated, his clothes hanging loosely from his body.

"Who's asking?" James's tone was cool and the man seemed to take a step back and shove his hands in his pockets.

"Liam."

_Aah. _So this was Liam, the ex who'd she been using for sex. He looked unimpressive. As much he disliked Rumlow even in death, at least the man had had a certain something about him, an arrogance to his walk, a proficiency with leadership. This man looked like nothing. If she hadn't of told him, he could barely believe he was a doctor. He looked unintelligent, sickly and pathetic. Mallory could do better than this.

"She's not here."  
"Oh." Liam clicked his tongue and sighed. "Well. When will she be back?"

"Soon."

Liam glanced him over, and took a step forward. Feeling threatened, James frowned at the man.

"Can I come in and wait for her?"

_No,_ he wanted to say. He wanted to slam the door shut and call Mallory and demand that she dump this absolute waste of space. The Winter Soldier within was agreeing with him for once, wanting to take an even more violent path and perhaps drag him into the house and break a few bones. The Soldier had been starved of violence recently and when both James and Bucky agreed with him, he knew it was the right course of action.

But it wasn't his house, and it wasn't his place to take care of such matters. So he stepped aside and sighed loudly, letting the door swing open slowly. As Liam walked into the house, James waited till his back was turned to grab a hoodie from the clothes pegs and swing it around his shoulders.

"God this place looks exactly the same." Liam stood in the hallway, his hands deep in his pockets and his gaze settled on James. "Hey, uh I didn't catch your name, man."

"James." He said, unwilling to really share much more than that. Liam's eyes brightened with interest; Mallory had been talking about him?  
"Oh. Mal mentioned you. She said you were her friend and you were made homeless or something?"

That must've been the story she had fed him. In reality, it wasn't all that false. James nodded, glad she made something up before he could.

"Sorry about that, man. It was real nice of Julie to let you stay here." The words were kind, but there was something off about the way he said it. His tone, stance and eyes were glinting in an odd way. A hint of amusement, alongside arrogance. The way he ran his hands over the table under the mirror and touched the paintings was possessive, like he was marking his territory.

James couldn't be bothered for a pissing contest, but he couldn't help but bite back. "Well, really it was Mal who swung her around. She's been a real friend to me."  
"I bet." James completed his observation of the hallway, and lent against the staircase. "How long have you two known each other?"

James paused, trying to think. How long? He automatically wanted to say three months, but it was definitely more than that. About nine months. It stunned him, gave him a proper pause for a moment to think he'd known Mallory for about a pregnancy. Odd. He didn't think he'd known anyone but Pierce for longer than three months. Even the team he used on bigger, complex missions as the Soldier was changed each time.

"About nine months."

"Nine months? Huh." Liam sucked his teeth in, and stepped forward. "Hey man I don't wanna be… prying or anything but… do you happen to know anything about the guy Mal dated before me?"

The question made James suck in a deep breath slowly before saying, "Excuse me?"

"I know, it's totally unethical to ask you. I mean you, you're her friend and stuff and obviously you know things about her. But like… I'm just worried about her. She mentioned him a little before Christmas but she just didn't want to talk about it to me. I thought giving her time would help..."Liam faltered under James's harsh glare, and slowly realization crept up on him. "You knew him didn't you? Man, I am so sorry to bring it up. It's just I'm worried-"

His tone was the crack of a whip when he spoke. "Have you ever thought that maybe she won't ever want to talk to you about her? I mean, why would she?"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"What do you think it means?" He hadn't raised his voice, but his low tone got his point across quite well. "If she does want to talk about it, she won't be coming to you."

James meant he'd go to her mother, but Liam took the wrong way.

"Oh, so she'll be coming to you? You'd love that wouldn't you. Look at you." Liam looked him up and down with disgust. "You're in love with her, and you can't stand to me making her happy."

James frowned then scoffed. He'd been dragged into a soap opera, and it seemed petty to entertain such a pitiful creature any longer. Liam's shallow gaze fell only on the romantic and sexual perceptions; he didn't dare think that Mallory had a lot more depth to her. He didn't realize that Mallory didn't want him back, or that she didn't love him any-more. He didn't realize that Mallory had fallen into a spiral, and she was using her past to try and claw her way back to the surface.

Or maybe he did realize, and this crap about James being in love with her was Liam's cover, to paint him as the shallow and self-absorbed man instead of himself. Either way, James just didn't care. He'd be there for Mallory when she came to him, but in the meantime it was her life, and she could spend it with whomever she chose to.

"Don't be ridiculous. I do not love Mallory Smith. And she doesn't love you." His enhanced hearing picked up on Mallory herself coming up the drive so James slunk off into the living room, and sat down on the sofa. He heard Liam behind him following to continue the brief skirmish, but the door opened and he heard Mallory gasp with surprise.

"Liam? What are you doing here?" Despite James washing his hands of the situation, he was glad when she didn't sound all that pleased to see him.

"I'm here to pick you up. For dinner."

"I cancelled. Didn't you get my text? Mom's coming home, making pasta bake." James wasn't sure that Julie would be able to stand when she got home, but he allowed her slip-up to pass by without comment.

"Oh. I didn't get it. Think my phone's been cut off."

James tried to drown them out with the comedy, but he couldn't help but listen. Mallory walked into the kitchen, the grocery bag rustling as she unpacked it and began putting it away. Liam followed, and he heard him sigh when he passed James.

"Oh. Well I'm sorry you drove all the way up here. I'll see you at the weekend." Although it was polite and well-spoken, a dismissal was a dismissal and James heard Liam slink off through the door. The Bucky within him wanted to wave him off with a cheery 'I'll see you soon' but he fought back the urge by biting his tongue.

Mallory walked in a second later, and said, "Do you think he knew I was lying about Mom?"

James offered a small smile, and shook his head in assurance.

Later, James was in the basement, exercising.

Sweat dripped from him, as he'd been down there for what felt like hours. Due to his enhancements, he could work out for longer than average humans but there was still a point where he began to ache; he was reaching it about now. His hair was scraped back, and he'd dumped his shirt ages ago, preferring to go topless.

_197… 198. _He lifted the weights above his head, counting, and breathing. He used to do weights back in the past, he remembered, but back then he'd been a little bit of a weakling. Of course, he was a superman compared to Steve's skinny frame but sometimes he used to pretend he could dead-lift eighty pounds, whereas really he could only do seventy comfortably. _Two more, just two more. _

As if on cue, Mallory opened the door to the basement and stepped in watching as he completed his last two reps. She waited, toe tapping, a smile on her face until he'd put the weights back on the stand and sat up.

"Could you pass me my t-shirt?"

The makeshift gym was silent, so his request could be said easily. He had tried working out to music but the exercise play-list Mallory had made was lacking in taste. After trying hard to run to the tune of a man talking about how he liked his women with huge asses, he'd switched it off and worked to the soundtrack of his own breathing. Mallory balled the shirt up and threw it at him, and he caught it easily and wiped his sweating face.  
"Mom's mad at you." She announced, after studying him. James wiped all of his face and hairline before answering.

"Why?" His heart-rate was beginning to return to normal, yet he still sounded a little breathless. Mallory's smile widened.

"You left the toilet seat up again."

"Oh." He remembered even in his own time, his mother had been particularly annoyed at him as well whenever he forgot that. "Sorry."

"Hey, don't tell me that, tell her that. I don't mind. And anyway, she probably won't remember that in the morning." Mallory tipped her head back to demonstrate why, making a motion with her hand to indicate she was pouring something down her throat. When she was done, she took a seat on the bench she had retrieved for him from a thrift store, one he used to run up and down on and comfortably do press up from. He glanced around at the weights he was sitting on and found a question that was bugging him coming to the forefront of his mouth.

"I've been meaning to ask… who's gym is this?"

He gestured around. It was empty, bare the weights, and the bench. A big mirror reflected them both, and a long metal rod hung down from the ceiling which was used for pull ups. It was a decent gym for him, and parts of the floors where covered in mats to do stretches on.

"My parents. Dad sometimes used the weights, whereas Mom used to do yoga."

"What about you?"  
"Nah. I and moving for fun don't really mix."

He recalled their training sessions, in which he had prepared her for their outing in the prison in the forest in Russia. "You did okay for me."  
Mallory looked proud of herself, and her cheeks coloured a little. "That's a real compliment coming from you."

She glanced down pointedly; it was clear she was insinuating that his physique was impressive enough to feel proud when he complimented her on her physical ability. Yet the glint in her eye and her stance said something else. The Winter Soldier had not been a spy; he had been an assassin, someone who didn't need to read cues from people and gather intel. His only function was to kill. However, Bucky was a soldier and soldier, in his time at least, were notorious for seducing women. And the vibe he was getting from her? Flirty.

James didn't know what to say. Was it just friendly flirting? He'd experienced and witnessed this type of thing before. He remembered with a dizzying jolt Bucky had had this type of relationship with this blonde woman who worked for the SSR when he was in the Howling Commandos unit. What was her name? He couldn't remember her name but he could remember the face. _Bucky would know what to say. _

In lieu of anything else, he merely swallowed tightly and moved on.

"So how did you do so well? Under me." Then he realized what he'd said. "Well, I don't mean literally under me, I mean like under my direction."

"You're a good motivator." She said kindly, smiling at him. "Generally I only exercise for pleasure, if you know what I mean."  
He didn't know what she meant. But then he did.

"Oh."

Mallory's face fell suddenly, and she sat forward. "Sorry. If I made you feel a little uncomfortable, I'm sorry it just came out. I still think I'm with Nat. Sorry."  
"Don't apologize." He meant that.

"No really-"

"Mal." His serious tone stopped her in her tracks, and he repeated firmly. "It's fine."

They fell back into a slightly awkward silence and James decided to practise his small-talk, hoping to return the favour of her attempting conversation.

"So… are you and Romanoff… close?"  
Mallory tilted her head with surprise, then smiled. "Uh, yeah. We're friends. Like you and me."  
James remembered Christmas, where he'd finally gotten some official confirmation to how Mallory thought of him. It was nice to know she did actually like him beyond their shared history and that she did care for him, not because she was a doctor. He'd thought of her once as his stability and it was nice to see the feeling was returned, albeit not exactly on his wavelength. Mallory would never know how much he was grateful to her help.

"You've known her for a short amount of time."  
"Yeah, but sometimes people can just click. I get on well with her. I like Nat."

"I didn't really get a chance to talk to her when I met her." He attempted some humour. "Too busy… shooting."

Mallory laughed and stood, turning to glance at herself in the mirror. She wore skin-tight leggings, which hugged her ass and when James realized he was staring he averted his gaze to his face. Her top was low cut, and when he looked at her she was adjusting her bra this way and that, making faces at herself in the mirror. For as much as he liked her, she was a bit weird.

"Why'd you ask?"

"Just wondering. And I'm glad you have friends beyond me, and Liam." As much as he tried to hide it, his tone became barbed at the mention of his name. The altercation with the man this morning made him dislike him. It was out of character for Mallory to go back to a man who had betrayed her trust in such a way. He couldn't remember but he was sure Bucky had never cheated on any of his girls.

Mallory noticed his tone and turned. "You don't approve."  
It was an observation, not a question. James felt his face grow hot, and he rubbed at his neck.

"It's not for me to approve or disapprove. It's your life." He murmured, looking down at his feet. He heard her walk over to him and he looked up when she was standing above him, her eyebrow raised.

"Friends share opinions. Especially about relationships."

James swallowed and still staring up at her, spoke honestly.

"I don't think he's right for you. At least, not right now. I think you need time to grieve and you're using the benefits of your physical relationship with him to achieve emotional benefits. But it won't work; stuff like that never does."

"You haven't met him."  
"I did this morning." _I didn't like him. _

"Well that must've been, what, a five minute conversation? That's barely enough time to get to know someone."

"You probably made an opinion of me when we met. I know I did. That was an even shorter conversation." He's… okay."

James looked down at his feet again, then looked up at her. "You hesitated."  
"No, I didn't. Did I?"

James raised his eyebrow and pointedly took a drink from the bottle beside him. Mallory laughed and covered her face, embarrassed.

"Okay so he's a bit… y'know." She bit her lip. "He asked me to move in with him."  
Shocked, James swallowed his water and said, "When?"

"November. I told him I'd think about it. I'm crazy aren't I? To be considering it."

He wanted to nod and say yes, to tell her again that he wasn't right for her, that she deserved better or at least a break from men. But James knew he had to dilute his opinion just to soften the blow.

"A little." He managed to choke out, making her laugh. "But maybe that's what you need. Some time away."

"Hm. I don't know. I was thinking of moving back home but I think Mom really needs me at the moment."

He thought of Julie, who had been drunk almost every day since Christmas and nodded solemnly agreeing with her. Julie needed a support network and since her sister lived far away, all she had was her daughter and him.

"It's up to you. But if I were you-" She listened raptly, her eyes alight with attention and interest. _Those eyes. _He swallowed nervously and cleared his throat. "- I wouldn't. It's too much of a commitment and you lied to him this morning just to get out of going to dinner."

Mallory pursed her lips, then punched him lightly in the shoulder. "Since when did you get so wise?"

"Since you became so dumb, apparently." He paused, studying her in case he had actually hurt her feelings. James was intensely relieved when she laughed loudly, her brilliant chuckle echoing around the empty basement.

Natasha Romanoff was in her apartment when she got the call.

On her flatscreen, a gift from Stark, was a channel airing reruns of _The Jerry Springer Show. _She hadn't really been watching much TV lately, so when the commercial breaks began she got up to make more cereal or another cup of coffee, or she flicked through the other channels. Things had gotten a little serious when she landed on the baby channel, which was airing some old cartoon. She couldn't remember the name, but Natasha could remember the episode. The main guy had found an egg, and he was attempting to lay it with his love interest, who believed it was a chicken. When the egg hatched, it was a dinosaur. Cue fifteen minutes of dinosaur escapades, along with the ending wrapped neatly in a tight bow with the dinosaur returned to its mommy. Kids liked weird stuff. Go figure.

It brought back feelings of nostalgia, as she'd seen it before. She'd seen it many times. Back in the Red Room, the facility in which she was trained from a young frightened Russian orphan to a fully fledged assassin, they'd played this cartoon. It was for the younger class, to familiarize them with concepts of America before the proper training began. She estimated she'd seen the episode almost 200 times. It made her nostalgic but the type of sick nostalgia, that came with smelling the same cologne her handler used to wear, or discovering the exact shade of lipstick that her trainer wore.

It was why she was so glad for the distraction so when the phone rang she didn't check who it was.

"Hey."

It was Rogers. "I hope you're not doing anything too demanding today; we're being called in."  
"By who? I thought you were the Avengers leader?"

"Star. He was the one who called me. Said he'd found another HYDRA base. Want me to pick you up?"

Nat considered it, then smiled. "If you don't mind."

"Of course I don't mind."

Steve was silent for a beat, so Natasha said, "Avengers. It's such a stupid name. When Fury told me about the Avenger Initiate, I remember being like 'why are they called the Avengers. What are they avenging?'. What are we avenging Steve?"

Steve was silent for another beat as he considered it. "You know, I don't actually know. The downfall of S.H.I.E.L.D, I guess?"

Nat laughed, high and sharp. "We're avenging the death of justice and freedom. So American."

"I thought you were American, now." Steve said humorously.

Natasha thought of the cartoon when she answered. "I don't feel American today. Anyway, I better go get dressed, I'll see you soon."

"Bye."

Steve hung up, and Nat got up to go and put on her catsuit. As she came out of the bedroom suited, she put her hand in the cereal box and scooped out a handful, dropping some cereal down her bra. _Earth's Mightiest Heroes, my ass. _

A/N: Another update. The ending is obviously leading into AOU. If you aren't aware, this will be the AOU bit in this fic, not in the sequel. I wanted to give you guys some fluff before the angst starts. Thank you for reading! Please review, and tell me what you think!


	6. Sentiment

For some reason, they'd picked Natasha to drive the Jeep.

The HYDRA base was in the middle of nowhere, and it was snowing heavily. The forest would be pretty in any other situation, a blanket of white powder across every surface, silent and serene. However, today it was alive with the sound of battle, Stark's repulsor jets and the constant stream of arrows Clint was firing. A man in snow camo-gear jumped on the side of the car and tried to land a few lucky strikes to Nat; she dodged one, then rolled the wheel, as she kicked her leg out to dispel him from the car.

Beside them, another Jeep knocked into the side. Nat yelped with surprise as the car was knocked off course, and she glanced back to see them readying a huge turret-style gun that would shred both her and Clint. With her team-mates safety in mind, she drove into the swerve to get back on course and readied herself to jump over the top to grab Clint to leap to safety. However, before she could, Thor had helpfully ripped the man from his seat and thrown him clean across the forest. She hoped he had seen her grateful smile.

They were nearing a bridge, a checkpoint of sorts with a manned watchtower. Thor leapt, using his godly powers to dispel them to free the Jeep to roll through the checkpoint with no bother. As they continued their course, she heard the roar of Steve's motorbike, a repulsor jet which narrowly missed her shoulder, and the distant thunder of the Hulk, running towards them. Bodies were flying everywhere as Nat steered, and she turned around to meet Clint's smile. He knew what she was about to do. She swerved the Jeep and jumped, readying a roundhouse kick, and the rest of her team followed her. It was a real freeze frame moment, proof that they could work well together, in sync like a proper team.

Nat's foot found it's target, and she rolled in a ball landing on her feet. In her earpiece, which connected her directly with each of her team-mates, she heard a manly grunt.

"Shit!"

Steve replied to Tony, saving Nat the trouble. "Language. JARVIS, what's the view from upstairs?"

Instinctively, Nat looked up. The last HYDRA base resembled a prison, with tiny box-like windows and old Gothic architecture. It would be pretty if it wasn't used for such dark deeds.

"The central building is protected by some kind of… energy shield. Strucker's technology is well beyond any other HYDRA base we've taken."

No kidding. The men who patrolled the forest had jet-packs, the kinda crap only fans of science-fiction would even think of inventing. Why jet packs when repulsor jet technology was invented? Jet packs were so eighties, so _Back to the Future._ She ripped one out of the air with a well placed shot, then stamped on his jet-pack to break it.

"Loki's scepter must be here. Strucker couldn't mount this defence without it." Thor forgot he was on speaker when he murmured, "At long last."

For not the first time, Nat mused how hard cleaning up his brother's mess must've been for Thor. After the first few HYDRA bases, Thor had been decidedly quiet. After some coaxing from the group, he finally confessed that his brother had died. A hero apparently, fighting off a dark elf who had caused some trouble with Asgard and London, the latter of which Nat had seen n the news. It had been received with mixed feelings, and most of them had not known what quite to say. It seemed odd to offer condolences to somehow who had tried to take over Earth in blood and flames. She still felt sorry for him.

As she mused, she came across a bunker manned by HYDRA agents. She unclipped one of her bombs and threw it at the nearest man, so when it exploded it took the full weight. Nat spun and jumped, her fist flying out to catch the nearest man in the face. As she landed she rolled, and began to dispel the group that formed at another turret gun. When she had cracked the last arm, she moved her hair out of her eyes and joined the conversation.

"At long last is lasting a little long, boys."

Clint laughed, and through his audio Nat heard an explosion. "Yeah. Think we lost the element of surprise."

"Wait a second… no one else gonna deal with the fact Cap just said 'language?'"

Nat laughed as she moved her way up the forest, reloading her guns and wishing privately she'd packed something a little large then someone in the comments section of a news website, on an article about the Avengers had described as a 'pea-shooter'.

"I know." Steve said, breathlessly. "Just slipped out."

Stark's A.I interrupted to back and forth. "Sir, the city is taking fire."

Nat arrived at a clearing, and beside her, a few meters away stood Clint firing arrows. They made eye contact, Clint's face screwing up with displeasure as he looked at her, not targeting anything but still managing to hit a passing jet-pack mounted HYDRA soldier. He still impressed her with his targeting skills, although she would never let him know that.

"Well we know Strucker isn't gonna worry about civilian causalities. Send in the Iron Legion."

Stark's peacekeeping robots were creepy. They had blank faces and spoke the same few phrases in a monotone voice, their arms raised passively to their usually jeering audience. Nat shook her head, fired a shot, then ducked behind a tree. A sound beside her suddenly made her heart stop; a gun blasting, and a groan. Nat's head turned, and she saw Clint's on the ground, in a crumpled heap.

"Clint!" She didn't care how worried she sounded. Nat ran across the snow-covered clearing with reckless abandon. Laura would kill her if anything happened to Clint.

"We have an enhanced in the field!"

_No shit. _Nat neared him and dropped to her knees, sliding across the ground. The cold seeped into her catsuit and froze her knees but she didn't care. "Clint's hit!"

She searched her belt for the small purse of emergency field supplies. She found the small bandages and began pressing on the wound, as Clint writhed on the ground. "Somebody wanna deal with that bunker?"  
As if on cue, a roar in the distant alerted the immediate surroundings of Bruce. Hulked out, he smashed through the trees at a breakneck pace, and ran straight into the bunker, turning carefully constructed cement to ash. Nat immediately felt a sense of safety, and found herself smiling.

"Thank you." She said softly, cradling Clint's head and applying more pressure. She stuck him with a little morphine to kill his pain, then sighed.

Steve interrupted the comms. "Stark. We're gonna need to get inside."

"I'm closing in." Stark replied confidently, then said "JARVIS, am I closing in? You see a power source for that shield."

Nat moved Clint's coat aside to properly asses the wound. The battle seemed distant now, at the sight of her friend moaning beneath her, his wound a gaping hole in his toned and usually blood-free stomach. He reached out his free hand, the other still grasping his bow and grabbed hers.

"Stop being dramatic, you aren't gonna die." But she held his hand anyway, knowing silently the smallest of wounds could lead to infection. _Now who was being dramatic. _

"Feels like it." Clint laughed, then groaned. "Ugh. This is worse than that time in Somalia with those knives."

Nat laughed, the memory rising to the forefront of her mind then fading.

"There's a build of up of energy near the tower." Stark's AI replied to his question. Nat heard Tony's self-satisfied huff, then he sighed.

"Great. I wanna poke it with something." The audio crackled, as Stark fired of a jet of his tech, then he said, "Drawbridge is down people."

Nat reminded them of their priorities, suddenly annoyed nobody had asked how Barton was. She knew deep down they were concerned, but for some reason she felt prickly with rage. "Clint's hit pretty bad, guys. We're gonna need evac."

Clint looked up at her. "Thought you said I was being dramatic?"

Nat rolled her eyes. A distant sound made her snap her head around, then relax. The familiar vibrations of vibranium on vibranium echoed through the forest, shuddering the ground beneath her. They'd rang the bell, so to speak, and all of a sudden the forest seemed to silence. Nat squeezed Clint's hand to remind him to stay awake, as the morphine was making him drowsy. Over her headset she heard Thor, Steve and Stark have a little back and forth and despite knowing Clint wasn't in any real danger, it still annoyed her that they were taking their time. Thunder cracked, suddenly, and Thor appeared in that way of his, his trial melting the snow and leaving scorch marks on the grass underfoot.

"Natasha." His cape billowed behind him, as he lowered his hammer and knelt on the ground beside her. "I am sure the good doctor could use a lullaby."

On cue again, the Hulk roared in the distance, and a tree smashed. Natasha was reluctant to leave Clint by himself, but she so desperately wanted to calm Bruce down, to lull him into his normal state. Like he'd read her mind, the God reached over and squeezed her shoulder.

"He will be fine. I shall watch over him."

Natasha smiled at him, and got up to follow the Hulk's trail. He was easy to find; his footprints were so large there was nothing else she could mistake them for, and she was sure if she was blind she would still be able to find him by the sound of his roar. The Hulk had made his way to a small indent in the earth, picking fights with birds who took flight the moment he stomped his feet and roared. She passed the evac truck and stopped to collect the clothes they kept spare for him on it.

It was always a shock to see the gentle doctor in that state. It always felt like he would never calm down, that the doctor was lost and the Hulk was forever. A branch snapped beneath her feet – stupid, she wasn't looking where she was going – and the Hulk's head snapped towards her. Involuntarily, she took a sharp breath before breathing the cold air deeply and crouching to make herself appear smaller.

"Hey big guy." Her voice was as soft and controlled as she could manage. "Sun's getting real low."

She offered her hand like they'd practised. The lullaby had been a suggestion from Bruce but it was Stark and she who had worked out the finer details. They'd repeated it every day when Bruce was Bruce, and when he eventually hulked out they'd repeated it then with limited success. Usually, the lullaby was only used to allow Bruce to gain the smallest amount of control and to force him to do the rest of the work. However, the end goal with the lullaby was to completely control him, to make him a little more kitten instead of full grown tiger.

The Hulk hesitantly stepped towards her and lifted his own hand. It was large, green and it dwarfed her own. When he raised it, she turned her own upside down. He mirrored her action, then pressed the back of his hand down to her palm. Following the movements she'd created, she touched his wrist gently, then followed the veins all the way down to the finger, in which she swiped upwards with a flick of her wrist. She was smiling now, unable to help herself watching this huge creature study her with an intelligent perception, and mirroring her movements. Nat was done, and she stepped back to watch his change. She hated this bit.

For a moment, the Hulk didn't move and Nat stepped forward to try the lullaby again. And then, startling her, he fell backwards and began to convulse in the worst way. To distract herself from the noise, she readied his clothes but saw out of the corner of his eye his frame growing smaller, and smaller.

When Bruce Banner returned to consciousness, he curled up on the forest floor and Nat watched, feeling sympathy and also something unfamiliar swell in her chest.

At the same moment, Mallory Smith lay in her boyfriend's bed playing on her phone. Liam's leg was curled around hers but that was where the contact ended; she'd wanted her hands free to successfully complete the course she had begun on Temple Run after they'd finished having sex. Her mind drifted momentarily, on the sex. It wasn't bad sex it just didn't… fulfil her. She remembered lying there waiting for him to finish and instead of being so wrapped up in each like normal she'd been staring at the ceiling wondering what she was gonna order from the Chinese. Or Indians. It depended on what James wanted, and if her mother was back from her drinking sessions. If her mother was there, she wouldn't want anything too spicy but if they were alone, James would enjoy blasting his palette with spices.

"Can we talk?" Liam asked, interrupting her train of thought. Mallory continued to swear incoherently when her ginger avatar stumbled over the rocks. She had even swiped to the right to avoid them but oh no, her avatar's obvious inner eye issue was making her fail.

"Is it important?" She countered. His tone was the type men take when they were about to confess something like how they were staying at work, or away on missions.

He sounded annoyed when he spoke. "More important then your stupid Temple Jog game."

Mallory laughed loudly, falsely and unkindly. She exited the game anyway, to soothe his irritation but rolled toward him, smirking.

"It's Temple Run, hon." She said. She hoped Liam would join in her laughter but his blue eyes grew very cold and serious. Mallory propped herself up on her elbow and wriggled to get comfortable.

"Okay. Shoot."

Liam sighed. "You said you'd think about what I asked you in November. About moving in with me. Did you think about it? I mean it's been almost five months."

_Oh God._ Why did he have to bring that up? It gave her a cold sweat just musing on the idea of it. Mallory sighed. Was it not obvious she was lukewarm in her feelings of the relationship? Then she felt terrible. Six months ago she would've never have acted so mean to anybody, even Liam. Why was she being such a bitch?

Horrible person aside, it still gave her utter shudders. She'd lived with Liam before but then everything was rosy tinted glasses. Living with someone with a big step, and it was weird negotiating the contracted beforehand. As much as she hated to think about it, Rumlow had just moved in of his own accord and at the time it had been natural, and not the grotesque invasion of her privacy that his intentions had designed it to be. But with Liam, the thought of moving in with him was unnatural. Weird. Like she'd suddenly cover herself in honey and find a bee farm, or maybe even call Natasha and ask to join the Avengers.

"I didn't really get round to thinking about it. What with Christmas and everything." Her voice was so weak even Liam noticed, rolling his eyes and rolling onto his back to stare at the ceiling.

"Are you even taking this seriously?" He half-yelled, getting up from the bed in a naked rage. "This. Us. Are we even going anywhere?"

"Jesus, can you save the relationship shit till the morning? It's fucking two am."

She watched as he put his pants on, and zipped his fly up. Shirtless, he looked better than he had when they'd met in the hospital for the first time. His gaunt look had faded, replaced with softness round his prominent jawline, and on his stomach. Even his skin tone had improved; healthy now, instead of the milky tinge she'd been used to. Despite Mallory's shortcomings in the relationship, she'd been a good medicine to getting over his wife.

"I think you should go." He said a moment later. Mallory sat up, and raised her eyebrows at his sudden growth of a backbone.

"You're throwing me out?"  
"Yeah. And I'm giving you an ultimatum."

Mallory slid out of the bed meekly and dressed. She was pleased to note he had trouble averting his eyes to avoid her body, watching her replace her bare breasts and ass with underwear then clothes.

"Ultimatum?" She felt twenty again, listening to Liam domineer her food choices in a restaurant on her birthday. "What?"  
"You figure out where this-" He gestured wildly to the both of them, then continued with his speech, "- is going or we break up."

_I could hurt him_, was Mallory's odd and sadistic first thought. I could hurt him physically, trap my legs around his windpipe or shoot him with the gun she knew he kept hidden in his beside cabinet. Watch him bleed out on his white sheets with satisfaction. Or more satisfying would be the thought of castrating him verbally. Mallory wasn't good with physical violence but God, could she hurt him verbally. She knew all of his insecurities; the failure of his marriage, the non-existence romantic threat James posed, the fact he'd tricked himself into thinking Mallory wanted him again.

_I don't love you, I love James. _That would be fun. That would be fun to watch him hear those words and delete his number and leave his apartment, dry eyes and a smile. Or maybe, _you're weak and I don't want you. I'm using you for sex. _The possibilities were endless, and they were all equally as fun.

_Careful Mallory. _The new voice in her head sounded like James, but also the robotic, emotionless voice of the Soldier. _You're starting to sound like me._

"Whatever." Was her weak response, "I'll call you tomorrow when you've calmed the fuck down."

She left the apartment, nerves fraying but ultimately glad she hadn't fucked his mind up. She called a cab and was promised a five minute wait. What could she do in five minutes? A remarkable coincidence occurred; her phone lit up like a Christmas tree with a picture of a black widow spider dangling from a web. Why was Natasha calling this early? She answered.

"Hey."

"Hey! I didn't actually think you'd be awake. What time is it where you are?"

Mallory checked the numbers on her phone. "2:16 exactly. Why? You abroad?"  
"Almost home from a mission. We got the last HYDRA base." Mallory exhaled. She hadn't realized this was news she'd wanted to hear, but a noose in her chest dissolved and she breathed in the cold air. "Barton got hurt."

She'd never met the Barton Nat talked about so often but she'd heard about him quite a lot, it was almost like she knew him. Mallory hissed in sympathy.

"Oh god. Is it bad? Are you okay?"  
Nat sighed. Looked bad on the field but I've been assured by everybody that he'll be fine. How's things?"  
Mallory shrugged, "Meh. Just got kicked out of my boyfriend's apartment, waiting for a cab."

"God. Why?" Natasha sounded amused and Mallory's devil-may-care tone.

"Apparently I'm not giving 110% in this relationship. Like is this _America's Got Talent _or _Real Housewives of D.C._?"

Nat laughed, then said, "But seriously, he has no regard for your personal life whatsoever."  
Intrigued, and also cold, Mallory hopped from foot to foot. "What do you mean?"

"Well, and forgive me for saying this but you're still kinda recovering from your last relationship. So he's giving you ultimatum's and shit when really, you're not 100% over Him."

Mallory was stung by the entirely truthful accusation. "I… am over Him. 100%. Hundred and ten percent, even."

"Hm." Obviously, the Widow was unconvinced but in an attempt to keep things light she continued, "Hey, Stark's having a party to celebrate and I was wondering if you'd want to be my plus-one."

Stunned, and totally forgetting Nat's true accusation, Mallory rocked on the balls of her feet. An Avengers victory party at the tower? She assumed it was going to be at the tower for privacy. She didn't belong at that type of party; she was ex-HYDRA. It was a polarization, literally, good and ex-bad drinking side by side. She wasn't even an acquaintance of the Avengers as a team; she knew Nat well enough but everybody else? She'd met Steve too but she was sure Steve still mistrusted her and hand on heart, Mallory didn't blame him. She was after all, keeping his not-dead best friend in her house.

"Um. I don't think that's a good idea."

"Oh come on! It'll be fun." Then Nat sighed. "Is it because you're ex-HYDRA?"  
"Well, yeah! I don't wanna turn up and be 'The Chick Who Didn't Know Who HYDRA Was and Accidentally Joined Them Because the Money was Good'."

Nat laughed long and hard at that one, and Mallory's cab pulled up where she was standing. The driver, a frog-faced female who looked to tired to wait for Mallory to finish her phone call, pointedly glared at her.

"Smith?"

Mallory nodded at the woman, and said, "Nat I gotta go. I'll call you in the morning or something."

"Okay. Think about the party! It'll be fun."

Mallory doubted that completely, but she appreciated the sentiment.

A/N: Thank you for waiting, and reading! Love you guys so much for the continued enthusiasm. I'm trying to stall the ten chapters I have planned until the release of Civil War to try and make sure there's not a big gap between writing but it's hard. I just wanna publish everything at once!


	7. Partying, Partying

Mallory Smith didn't generally like flying. However, on one of Stark's private planes, holding a glass of champagne and watching the clouds melt away whilst the jet made no sound louder than a whisper, it was rather decent.

Natasha had called again and pestered and pestered, so much so that Mallory had found herself yelling for the Widow to shut up, as yes, she was going to come to Stark's victory party. Her mother, nursing a gin and tonic, had practically screamed at her when she'd voiced concerns over leaving James.

"Don't be stupid, Mal!" Her mother had said, "You HAVE to go. James will be fine with me."

To supplement this, James turned to her and nodded. "Yeah. You should go."  
Later as she'd been waiting for the cab to show up, James had came outside with her. "Could you… uhm… could you..."  
Mallory put her hand on his arm, soothing his nerves. "Of course I'll see how he is."

The He in question being Captain America, a man whom Mallory had been assured would not refer to her as being any type of HYDRA subordinate for the night.

"Please." Natasha had said, when Mallory had asked again. "Do you really think he would do that?"

No, was the answer. Of course the literal personification of the American Dream would never refer to her as HYDRA Bitch at all, even if she was aligned with them again. Tony Stark, however? Probably. She kept her worries to herself and sipped more champagne. It wasn't just her on the plane either; a bunch of supermodels, actors and politicians who hadn't had the chance to organize their own travel had been booked on the plane as well. By herself, she had played Who's Who on the plane. She recognized the brunette across from her, who'd starred in a music video where she and two others had danced naked and later landed a role in that movie about the missing wife. The man on the other aisle was a famous wrestler, who was currently rocking a proportionate amount of facial hair and the same jeans, t-shirt and leather jacket combination he wore in the ring. A few others were familiar too; an actor turned rapper who perpetually looked sad, a few reality TV stars who draped over each other in the aisle and talked loudly about photo opportunities and a politician whose last run for Senator of Virginia had turned his previously auburn hair to grey after _those_ photos had gotten out. How he showed his face in public Mallory had no idea.

Someone came out of the bathroom. The sound of the flushing toilet and running water made Mallory look up to give a cursory glance but when she realized who it was, she gaped. _Oh my God. _Literally starstruck, Mallory found her hands reaching for her mobile. Her signal was terrible, but she could still report the sighting via iMessage. iPhones were wonderful things.

_Guess who's on Stark's private jet _

It didn't take long for the message to be read, the small ellipsis bubble to appear then the box to appear with his words.

_FROM: James_

_Who?_

_Daenerys motherfuckin' Targaryen_

Khaleesi was standing above her, making conversation with the air hostess. Her style was impeccable, boyfriend jeans and black heels, and when she breezed past Mallory smelt the trail of pomegranates and flowers.

_FROM: James_

_No kidding?_

His enthusiasm was appreciated; she'd knew he'd never admit but he so had a crush on her.

_No kidding. I'd take a photo but that'd be super creepy. She's even more beautiful irl_

_FROM: James_

_I bet_

Mallory put her phone away and when the Queen herself passed, Mallory met her eyes and smiled. She wouldn't approach though; she thought it was weird when outside of conventions, meet and greets or premières, fans would go up to celebrities and ask for photos. Perhaps weird wasn't the right word. Mallory knew she would never do it herself. Her empathy levels were ridiculous, and they'd never asked to be recognized, just to do their work and play their characters. Still, Mallory couldn't help but be starstruck. Goodbye beautiful model who'd appeared naked in that video, the Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea was on the plane.

She wondered if it would be weird if she pulled out the novel _Game of Thrones _and read it in front of her.

After a short flight, and an even shorter time to change at the expensive hotel Stark decided to pay for her, she'd met Nat in a cab to take them to the Avengers Tower. Mallory knew she couldn't compete with the actresses and secret agents that were going to be at the party, so she decided to look understated on purpose. The black dress was simple, it's only notable feature being the lace Bardot top. Her shoes were silver, her eye makeup smokey and her clutch stuffed with perfume and nude lipgloss. Her prediction was corrected by Nat, who met her in the car in an expensive looking gold and black dress. Her hair was curled like a pin up, her lips shiny with gloss.

"Nervous?" Nat asked, as they headed up the elevator to the penthouse floor.

"Kinda. Open bar?"  
"If there wasn't do you really think I would've invited you?"

"That's true."

The elevator pinged, and the doors parted. _Wow. _The penthouse was an incredible space. A huge open floor, modern and tech looking, glass overlooking the city of New York from a dizzying height. The room was packed with people of all sizes, statuses and shapes. She saw smiling supermodels talk pleasantly with military suited old men, middle aged woman laughing at jokes from young actors. The first thing that hit her was the music; smooth jazz, at a loud enough volume to have a pleasant conversation with a neighbour without leaning into each others ears. The second was the atmosphere. Despite the numerous glamorous suits and dresses the men and women wore, there was no rush to compete, no desire to walk fast. Very lazy and casual, the type of atmosphere she'd expect to see at a chilled get together for friends. Friendly. It gave Mallory ease, softening the tension in her shoulders. Despite the fact Mr Stark must have warned everybody an ex-HYDRA agent would be attending, nobody stared or moved from her path in warning. She smiled at Nat warmly, who raised her eyebrow as if she'd been aware of Mallory's reservations.

"Wow."

"I know, right?"

They stood together at the doors of the elevator, Nat placing her hand gently on her arm to point out people.

"There's Thor-" Mallory followed her hand with her eye line, spotting the tall blonde dressed regally. "-and that's Clint-" The archer wore plaid and a leather jacket. "-and that's James Rhodes, he's Stark's best friend-" She pointed to a sharply dressed man standing near a woman in a red dress.

"His wife?"

"No, that's Maria."

It took a minute, but she connected Maria with the agent who had helped them at the downing of the Triskelion. "Maria? Oh my God, she looks so different."

"Doesn't she?" Nat laughed. "Beside her is Bruce."

The Hulk looked very calm tonight, dressed casually, his hair a complete mess. Nat had spoken of him extremely fondly, but also very drunkenly at New Years Eve. Mallory couldn't see what had gotten her in such a tizz about him. Sure he was cute, but dorky looking, like the resident computer geek in high school. She had always expected Nat to want a man who looked like a linebacker in the NFL.

"Oh. And Steve?"

"Oh Steve's over there. Sam's with them, as well." Nat pushed her slightly. "Go say hi. I'll come over when I've got a drink. Do you want one?"  
Mallory nodded, her throat suddenly dry, her palms sweaty. Nat pushed her again in their direction, and Mallory found her feet, her heels making loud clacking noises as she approached the pool table where they played together, absorbed in their game. Apprehension sank her stomach. She felt like Steve would take a look at her and pronounce her a liar, somehow knowing she'd been hiding James at her home, maybe from the smell on her clothes or the guilty look in her eye.

But Sam saw her first, his first look of confusion replaced with recognition and a smile. He put his cue down, and met her before she reached the table.

"Hey!" His grin was infectious and Mallory grinned back, "How you been, stranger?"

They hugged briefly, the smell of his cologne subtle and enticing, and they stepped back to admire each other. Sam wore leather well, and he smelt fantastic.

"Good. How are you?"

"Great."

Steve stepped into view. He wore a blue shirt and dress pants, his hair fluffy and blonde, looking all American and patriotic. A real beautiful man. Mallory, as she had when she'd seen him the first time, felt a little out of place and starstruck. At first he wasn't quite sure what to do; a moments hesitation in his features, as he laid down the pool cue and approached her and Sam. She didn't blame him. And then his chivalry kicked in and he shook hands with her. His smile was nothing short of a genuine enthusiasm to see her, and she was grateful for that.

"Hey. It's nice to see you again."

She smiled, gratefully. "Thank you."

His grip was firm, and they shook hands once. He stepped back and immediately, fearing the awkwardness of silence, launched into updating her on where they thought James was hiding.

It turned out Sam was doing the majority of the hunting, and he believed he had a solid trail of where James was in Brazil. The entire conversation, the way Steve's eyes filled with hope and enthusiasm, the way Sam talked passionately about it, gave her the biggest guilt complex. Would he ever forgive her if he found out, she mused as Steve's eyes bored into her as he talked. Would she ever forgive herself? In a lull of the talking, Mallory's mouth opened to say something, _anything _about how James was currently sitting in her living room catching up on a marathon of _Gilmore Girls. _

Then she closed it again. It wasn't her place. Although she had begged James to let her reveal the information, she was bound by doctor patient confidentiality. No. It was more than that. She and James had gone so beyond doctor patient relations that she was sure some committee somewhere would have her sanctioned. She didn't want to upset her friend.

So Mallory shut her mouth, and smiled up at both men.

"You both sound… busy."

"We are." Sam confessed, talking slightly into the lip of his beer bottle. Steve turned and shot him an amused look, then sighed.

"It's worth it though. I want to find him. I need to find him."  
"Do the others know about your hunt?"

It was Steve's turn to look guilty. "I, uh..."

Sam cleared his throat and rescued Steve. "It's on a need to know basis at the moment. Meaning us, Nat and Fury."

"Huh."

Steve looked at her suddenly. "I know we haven't had the closest of relationships, Mallory but… I do want to know that I am grateful for all your help. I mean, if it wasn't for you I wouldn't of had a clue how to break up Bucky's memory wipe if you hadn't of told me. You took down HYDRA even though your family was apart of it and I've been treating you unfairly. You're brave, Mallory, and I want to thank yo for looking after Bucky when he wasn't himself."

Her throat was too tight to speak. Captain America had called her brave. He'd thanked her for looking after James. She was so sure she was going to cry that her hands went together, her nails seeking out her flesh to dig into. She hoped the pain would force the tears back into her eyes, that it would force away the lump in her throat.

"Thank you, Steve. That means a lot."

She couldn't stay for the rest of the party. It was too much, so she ducked out with a mere thanks to her host Mr Stark, whom looked at her with such confusion it made her laugh. The hotel she'd booked to stay in overnight was paid for by Stark, therefore she was living in the lap of luxury. Despite the silken bedsheets and complimentary champagne, she'd never felt more alone staring out on the familiar skyline of New York with regret.

Not telling Steve had been difficult but hearing him thank her was worse. She checked her phone; three texts.

_FROM: Nat_

_Hey where did you go? I went to mix cocktails and you weren't there. Are you okay? Call me!_

_FROM: Nat_

_Mal are you alright? Call me soon!_

And the last one was from James:

_FROM: James_

_How was he?_

She switched her phone off, too tired to answer both texts with an appropirate amount of enthusiasm. Ducking under the silken sheets, she tossed and turned for what felt like forever, but eventually fell asleep dreaming of cool blue eyes and the American flag.

In the morning when she switched on the news, she saw the headlines. **STARK PARTY ENDS IN VIOLENCE, **they said. Details were sparse, but all agreed some type of robot-looking thing had broken out of the Avengers tower and was messing with the internet.

Could things get any worse?

A/N: In honour of the Civil War trailer, I got my butt in gear and finished this chapter which had been plaguing me for months. I'll try to be more frequent in the future. I can't promise anything, but please stick with me! I know how frustrating it can be to wait.

I SWEAR I'M WORTH IT. Love to all!


	8. Bitter Pills

The girl had gotten inside her head. The young girl, the girl with the long brown hair and the bright eyes that reminded Natasha of herself in a way, using her talents to make victories for her cause. The girl had gotten inside her head and forced unwanted memories to the surface, picking them from her brain like she was a toothpick, painfully wiggling the scraps of memories out between the teeth of her blocks.

Forcing memories forced the feelings back to the surface too. Natasha sat on the bed at Clint's farmhouse, staring out at the picturesque fields and watching his wife Laura cradle her swollen stomach as she directed Steve and Tony across the grass, but instead of the calmness that came with the feeling of the country she could only feel dread. The sweaty-palmed, dry-throated, nausea inducing wave of dread and utter fear that had consumed her. She could feel the ghostly memory of her handler's hand on her face, forcing her down onto the hospital bed to be wheeled to her fate despite her not resisting because resisting mean death. A phantom pain in her lower stomach flared, like cramp from the menstrual cycle, reminding her of her curse despite the fact the womb within could never bear a child. She mirrored Laura from above, cradling her flat stomach in a way that suggested there was a blossoming growth of cells within, her eyes prickling with tears because she knew it would never be.

The door hinges creaked and footsteps alerted her to another presence. She quickly wiped away the tears and stood, turning to face Bruce rubbing a towel through that wild hair and looking sheepish when he saw her.

"Didn't realize you were waiting."

Natasha smiled, and went for light. "I would've joined you but… it didn't seem like the right time."

Bruce acknowledged her vague attempt at humour, then gestured back the steam filled bathroom with an apologetic set to his mouth. "I used up all the hot water."

"I should've joined you."

"Missed that window." He was referring to missing him showering, but Natasha felt something else packed into his words.

"Did we?" She asked, her words feeling bitter in her mouth. Bruce sighed and walked around the bed, to retrieve a black shirt and start to button it up his chest slowly.

"The world just saw the Hulk." He said, "The real Hulk for the first time. You know that I have to leave."

"You assume that I have to stay. I had this dream, the kind that seems normal at the time but when you wake..."

"What did you dream?"

"That I was an Avenger. That I was anything more than the assassin they made me."

"Nobody made you, Nat."

"You're wrong." She closed the gap between them almost breathlessly, and smiled up at his form when she realized she was within inches of his mouth. He was less than pleased.

"What are you doing?"  
"I'm running with it. With you. If running's a plan. As far as you want."

He stepped away from her, cutting off the physical contact. "Are you out of your mind?"

"I want you to understand that-"

"Natasha. Where can I go? Where in the world am I not a threat?"

"You're not a threat to me. You're not a threat to us." She gestured to the window, Steve and Tony chopping wood in the garden, the thumping of their axes splitting the oak making an unruly tempo to the conversation. "You only reacted like that because of that girl, the enhanced. It's not you."

"You sure? Even if I didn't just… there's no future with me. I can't ever… I can't have this." Bruce gestured around the room and Nat felt her heart skitter in her chest. He gestured to the paraphernalia of childhood, abandoned toys, tacked up pictures that the kids had drawn at school. So it wasn't just her. Bruce had wanted kids, wanted kids with her, and he was beating himself up about it that he couldn't ever give her it. If only he knew. "Kids. Do the math. I physically can't."

"Neither can I." Nat confessed, her eyes prickling with tears. "In the Red Room where I was trained, where I was raised, they have a graduation ceremony. They sterilize you. It's efficient. One less thing to worry about. The one thing that might matter more than a mission and they take it from you. Makes everything easier, even killing. You still think you're the only monster on the team?"

The question hung in the air, the open mouth of Bruce indicating his shock. Natasha felt herself beginning to lose control so she turned away from him, feeling the matter-of-fact tone to her tears starting to fade. She covered her mouth but a sob escaped, a broken sound of longing as the phantom pain her stomach wrenched once more. Bruce crossed the space between that he had created and took her into his arms.

"Being sterile doesn't make you a monster. Them making you sterile was the monstrous thing to do."

Nat didn't speak; couldn't speak really, her throat closing as she silently clung to him as if he was the last thing keeping her upright.

"They took away one of the few things that could be yours and yours alone and I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry you had to go through that."

"Wasn't your fault." She sniffed and he loosened her hold, so she could free her hands and wipe her eyes. "Wasn't my fault. I'm learning to live without it. And I could with you. I can live without that in my future but that doesn't mean we still don't have one."  
"Nothing would make me happier. But it would be selfish if I condemned you to a life of running away."

Nat scoffed and spoke sarcastically. "Oh, because it's not like I'm used to that."

"God." Bruce said, after a few moments silence. "We're a right pair."

Nat paused and glanced up at the face of the man who she had steadily adored more and more over the time they'd spent together and snorted unkindly.

"You're telling me." She laughed, burying her face back in his chest.

Nighttime and instead of the usual atmosphere of relaxation at the Smith household, Mallory was panicking. It was trending on Twitter. #UltronHack with various stories of how people had seen the 'flying Stark robot trash shit' mere feet from their faces. The news channels reported it with increasingly fearful faces, and Mallory was gripped to her seat watching nought else but the news coverage. The Avengers had gone into hiding, answering no one's calls, not even Mallory's. She had Steve's and Nat's numbers but nobody had responded.

"So you don't know if he's dead?" James asked. His pale face had gotten paler and paler, tighter with worry as the hours had ticked by with no response from Steve. He was wearing a jacket and standing in front of the TV, his shoes laced tightly, ready to run outdoors and rescue the team if she'd discovered where they were.

"He won't be dead."

"You don't know that!

"I'm sure if Captain fucking America had died, this Ultron thing would've gleefully posted it all over Facebook!"

Her voice echoed around the empty living room and colour rose in her cheeks. James sighed and some of the tension in his shoulders seemed to disintegrate.

"He's not dead. Don't ask me how I know but he isn't dead."

"I'm just-" He caught Mallory's eye and looked apologetic. "-worried. That's all."

Worried meant he kept pacing up and down and every time the news channel hit a break he'd switch to one that wasn't and watch that until that one hit a break. The agitation, although touching, was starting to irritate her and in the end, she called Sam.

"I was just about to call you." He spoke without saying hello, too agitated with pleasantries. "Do you know anything?"

"I was about to ask you the exact same thing. You have any idea where they might be?"

"Safehouse, probably. Although with S.H.I.E.L.D defunct and all of their files on the internet, I doubt they could go anywhere that was on file in case someone found them.

"Like this Ultron." A grainy picture of the robot himself flashed up, and Mallory felt a chill of terror run down her spine. "Where you there when it happened?"

Sam made a clicking noise with his tongue. "No. Steve called after it happened and said he might be going dark for a while."

"How long is a while?" Mallory said, a little miffed Nat hadn't done her the same courtesy and preventing this tailspin into anxiety.

"I have no idea. Hey, I gotta go but if anybody gives you an update, call me straight away."

"Likewise. Thanks Sam."

James waited until she'd hung up and broke his gaze from the TV. "Any news?"

"He's alive. As of last night." Mallory stood to stand next to him, mirroring his pose unintentionally as they stood side by side staring at the TV. James's jaw kept clenching and unclenching and Mallory laid a hand on his shoulder, speaking with her bedside voice.

"He'll be okay."  
"I know but-"

He never got to finish his sentence because he stopped of his own accord. Mallory frowned at him and was about to ask what was wrong when all of a sudden the lights went out. Mallory stared at the bulb overhead, frowning as the afterglow began to fade and looked over to where James was stood in the dark. Still as a rake, his head turning this way and that as if he was attempting to hear something. Then-

"MALLORY!"

A body crashed into her, hot and weighty, and they landed in a heap on the floor. Dark hair covered her face, strong hands pinned her down but familiar smell of body wash and that unique scent of James lessened her anxiety. He was so close their bodies were touching, his heartbeat thudding into hers through their chests. But why was he suddenly groping her in the dark? The windows smashed to answer the question milliseconds, glass shattering and showering them both, James taking most of the debris. Mallory could feel small crystals blinding her eyes so she squeezed them shut. The world went dark, and mechanical whirring and lights filled the room.

The warm weight was gone. Mallory heard a large thump and a groan and then standing above her was Ultron. His eyes glowed in the dark, crimson, the heart of a fire and his cold hand reached downwards to yank her upwards painfully to her feet.

"Sorry about the mess." His voice was smoother than she'd anticipating, a humane one filling the throat of the mechanical body, so typically Stark in it's fluid and humanoid design. "And for breaking your boyfriend."

_James_. Sweat prickled her back as she was horrified. If this robot saw his face, he would take him for sure. To use him as blackmail for Steve. She was pretty sure Ultron could've taken a picture of James on the floor and Steve would've given up the planet for him. _Please don't get up_. She was praying to every god she could remember, old and new. _Please don't get up. _

"Get off me. Why are you here?"

"I'm looking into every associate of the Avengers. Do you know where they are?"

"No. And I'm no associate of the Avengers. I'm HYDRA."

His laugh startled her; deep from the whirrings of his chest but joyful, a perfect imitation of human joy coming from the mouth of a thing that had slaughtered people. "You're not HYDRA. At least not any more. I did read the files."

Another groan from the corner and Mallory felt like knocking James out again, to make sure he wouldn't put himself in even more danger by rising and most likely trying to rescue her. "Sure you did. I hear you like information."

"I do."

"Then check my phone. Check my laptop. You'll see none of them have called me."

Ultron released her and located her mobile from the table. Ow. Mallory massaged her arm to get rid of the ache of his grip, but kept her eyes on him, flicking back and forth between the big scary robot and James as he lay concussed. Mallory wasn't as frightened as she expected to be; the sweat had vanished and she was more scared of James's fate then her own.

"I see you are right. No calls. In that case, do you have any wish to join me, since the Avengers have so callously abandoned you?"

Mallory actually laughed, and felt like spitting on his metal shell. "They haven't abandoned me. They'll be back."

"Sure they will." Ultron came right into her face then, the crimson eyes boring deep into her own so much so that it was painful like shining a torch into her corneas. "You'll get what you're owed."

She blinked out of reflex, and when she opened her eyes the room was dark again, no longer illuminated by the robots violent light. A moment later and the power kicked back in.

"Mal-"

"James!" She skidded across the floor, small pieces of glass cutting her jeans and digging into her jeans. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine. What the hell was that?"

"We got a visit from Ultron."

"Ultron? As in-"

"News Ultron, the scary robot that's been terrorizing the world?" Mallory leaned forward and took James's arm around her shoulders, guiding him upwards and encouraging him to lean his weight more on her. "Yep. That Ultron."

She and James began to limp into the kitchen, the only glass free room in the entire house. As they left the sitting room, Mallory cast a sweeping glance over the damage. The windows were put in and cold air was streaming through. There was a dent in the wall that James had been thrown into and the pictures he'd smashed against were now dust, the smiling faces of the subjects unaware of the abuse they had suffered.

"What did he want with us?"

"Not us. Just me. He didn't know who you were." Mallory rooted in the cupboard for the first aid kit, "He just thought you were my boyfriend. Thank God."

"Yeah." James winced as he massaged his back. "He's strong."

"He must be to be able to throw you across the room." Mallory located the bottle she was looking for and coaxed it to James's lips. "Drink this."

Trusting her entirely, he swallowed a mouthful then gagged. "Just because I can't get drunk doesn't mean vodka doesn't taste nice."

"Distracts you from the pain though." She quipped, and yanked out a shard of glass from his shoulder. James groaned, then glared at her.

"Don't ever do that again."

"Want another mouthful?"

He smiled. Mallory went off into the sitting room to call Sam.

A/N: I modified some of the dialogue in Nat/Bruce scene because it's short in the movie and personally, some of the lines don't sit right with me. Anyway, I hope everybody had an amazing Christmas and I love you all for sticking with me! two more chapters to go before the end!


	9. I Adore You

_She dreamt of kissing him._

_Strange. She'd never been so close to him before but his features were ingrained in her mind in high quality like she had. His jawline was sharp, and when she pulled away from those delicately full lips she placed kisses to line it. He tilted his head back in response and the low rumblings of a satisfied groan made their way up his throat. Her hands were never still, reaching inside the borrowed jacket and up the line of his shirt to brush the warm skin beneath. His hands weren't idle either; warm hands touching everywhere, hands, stomach, breasts and face. _

_Passionate because they didn't have the time to stop. And well needed. They were stressed because the world was ending or something bad was happening and this was a final chance to make clear of their feelings. Like something out of a movie. A dream. It felt so real. The heart beat thudding in her eyes. The hazy feeling in her stomach. It wasn't the impending doom of an apocalypse that sent her heart racing however. It was how his smell was clouding her senses and giving her brain a blank slate to fill with nothing but him, his body, his firmness against her. She had waited so long. So had he. _

_But the rising feeling in him couldn't be stopped. She could feel under the palms of her hands how he stiffened and the bands of tensions in his shoulders was building up and up. Then he pushed her off._

_Rejection washed through her but was stifled when he held her close and brushed a strand of her hair that tickled the warm skin on her face. _

"_I love you, Mallory."  
The tension reached breaking point as he waited for her response. She pulled him back on the sofa they were laying on and wrapped her legs around him, an affectionate trap to keep him on her. When he lay above her, their heartbeats slowing to synchronize as the world began to fade around her she finally responded._

"_I love you too, James."_

Mallory woke slowly. Nothing seemed right in the real world as the pressure on her chest – god he was so warm, he was so real! - faded and replaced with the lighter weight of her bed covers. The bright light of a perfect Saturday morning was filtering through the sky and as she woke, wiping crust from the corners of her eyes and stretching her body from the sleeping position, a feeling of panic surrounded. Sex dreams about James… at this time! Natasha and the gang were still missing in action and James was so fraught with worry he didn't have time to even look at her when he talked to her.

Sex dreams. Well not necessarily sex. Just kissing. She felt the need to defend her subconscious to her waking brain. Dreams were a process of cataloguing the days events, thoughts and moods and she had spent the entire day with James. And thinking about how lonely she'd been recently.

There. There was the reasoning. The mood was being lonely, she'd spent too much time with James and therefore her dream showed her being affectionate with the person she spent the most time with. Did it matter that there was zero attraction with the person in question? To the subconscious, it did not.

_Is there really zero attraction there, Mallory, or are you just lying to yourself? _

"MALLORY!" The man in question called up the stairs, and followed the echo of his voice as his footfalls could be heard from right outside her door. In panic, Mallory banished her thoughts and reached over to her night stand to sip from the glass of water she'd placed the night before.

"Mal!" He knocked twice, anxiously. "Can I come in?"

"Yeah. Yeah sure."

He opened the door. His hair was tied back loosely and he wore clothes similar to what he'd been wearing in her dream; a loose vest and jeans. He looked breathless and agitated, sleepless and anxious, all of the adjectives associated with being scared covering his face. His face… the jawline that she'd placed her dreamy lips upon looking as sharp as ever in the cold light of the day.

"Something wrong?" She asked, concerned and hoping his superhuman senses couldn't pick up how her heart felt fluttery with embarrassment.

"You need to see this. They're on the news." He didn't have to say who 'they' were.

He ran back downstairs and she followed, putting on a dressing gown to cover her underwear and oversized t-shirt combination. When she'd met him downstairs, he pointed at the TV. The headline screamed 'SOKOVIA IN THE SKY' with an anxious looking news reporter reading the story in a fast paced speech.

"These images are live from the Channel 4 news helicopter. Eastern European state Sokovia has been attacked by the Stark robot Ultron. Ultron has engineered a technology to rip the city from the ground and fly it in the air. Details are thin but we do know the Avengers are there and attempting to evacuate the city-" The screen cut away from the reporter, showing grainy footage of Steve helping some people into a Helicarrier-like boat, Clint firing arrows in the air and some long haired woman Mallory didn't recognize firing red bursts of energy towards Ultron's robots. "- with the help of what looks like a S.H.I.E.L.D vessel. Scientists around the world have already calculated the land mass in the sky and have predicted if dropped, it would be a global event of mass destruction."

Mallory's mouth had fallen open. James's foot was tapping impatiently against the wooden floor and he was muttering to himself.

"I should be there. I should be there with him."  
"There's nothing you could've done."

"I should be there to help or something-"

Mallory was suddenly terrified. She stepped forwards in an attempt to say something to comfort him but the words 'mass destruction' swam in her head and wouldn't stop, making her feel dizzy and sick. Her life seemed to shift, everything slotting into perspective. It didn't matter that she'd had a sex dream or she couldn't sleep at night sometimes or that she still hadn't answered her boyfriend in whether she wanted to move in with him. She might die in a few hours and all she could think was how much that fucking sucked. A single tear slid down the sides of her cheek and the anxious look on James's face faded when he saw her.

"Oh God. Mal, don't cry."

"I'm sorry." She waved him off when he stepped toward her hesitantly, "Just ignore me."

"Mal-"  
"Can you go wake mom up? If we're going to die, I'd rather we all went together."

He went from the room. Mallory collapsed into a chair and watched the news like James had been, her eyes never leaving the screen in fear. She was frightened to blink in case she missed anything. Her stomach felt like the land mass Ultron was lifting; rising and rising until that sudden sickening motion where it dropped and made her feel sick.

Natasha Romanoff looked into the eyes of Bruce Banner and found herself teleported.

New Years Eve. She was in a bar with Mallory, a crappy bar down-town with sticky benches and raucous customers. It was the hours leading up to the countdown and the bar was getting louder, the noise seeming to swell the bar to breaking point as the drinker packed the sticky benches from side to side. Mallory was sipping from a rum and coke, her cheeks red, her eyes bright. Nat was stirring a Martini with her finger idly, elsewhere in her thoughts.

"So come on," Mallory had said, her words slurred as the drink was more rum than coke at this point, "Who is he?"

"Who is who?"

"The guy you've spent all night wishing I was." Nat had opened her mouth to protest but Mallory had just laughed and shrugged her off. "Don't be dumb. Would it be better if I said I wished you were someone else too?"

"Who?"

"Hmm. Ben Affleck?"

The pair erupted into peals of laughter. Their combined nose was lost in the consciousness of the bar, as the TV announced the cut to New York City where the countdown was scheduled to begin soon. Once their laughter had faded, Nat sighed and stared into the dark eyes of Mallory intently, knowing she could trust her.

"It's Bruce. He's uh, away. He disappears through the year. Just seems to turn up whenever we need him. It's like he's got a trouble radar that flares whenever the whole team's in town."

Mallory laughed. "I'm surprised Stark hasn't built that yet."

"Time will tell."

Mallory, with her keen observational skills, leant forwards on the bar and rested her chest on the sticky bench. Alongside her keen observational skills, she had a pretty impressive chest and a low cut top which caused the barman to fix his eyes on it and drool like a dog when she talked. Nat fingered the electrically charged baton in her stylish Dior clutch, wondering if she'd ruin New Years Eve for everyone in the bar if she cracked him around the head with it.

"You're thinking about him. It must be worse at this time of year, what with the whole family atmosphere and 'getting together'. Must be hard for you, what with you being in love with him and all."

Was she really that transparent? "He's just a friend." Nat muttered and Mallory's eyebrow raised.

"Hmm. Of course he is. Because I spend my holidays thinking about lonely my friends probably are."

"It's a different relationship to your friends-"

"Drop the act, Nat. Tell me."

Natasha took a deep breath and glanced around the bar. Although they were loud and her conversation would go unnoticed by fellow-drinkers, she still felt paranoid. Her cheeks heated without the influence of alcohol and an unknown feeling of shyness enveloped her.

"Okay. Fine. So I might like him."

"I've seen photos and he's cute and all in a sort of dishelved professory way but no offence? That green and purple combo he wears all the time has to go."

But Nat continued, empowered by the fact Mallory didn't laugh out loud at the sound of Natasha Romanoff, top secret assassin and spy, the Black Widow, former KGB agent, graduate of the Red Room and current member of the Avengers liking a guy who she personally felt she was completely unworthy of.

"I admire his strength. His resilience. I have no idea how he gets out of bed in the morning without crying. We're both… monsters. After my files got released after the S.H.I.E.L.D/HYDRA thing, the public hated me. I was forced to drag out all of the ugly stuff I'd done and already hated myself for so that the public could hate me too. It's the same with him after the Harlem incident, they hated him for so long. The good we do together does not redeem the bad. I know what it's like to be something that you hate but you have no idea how to change, because you can't. But then we're different. Because with him it's not his fault-"

Mallory interrupted. "What happened in the Red Room is not your fault. Christ, Nat, they brainwashed you from a little girl! It's all on them."

Unable to agree with her, Nat just looked away. "He's lost… so much and he's done so much and he can't forgive himself even though it's not his fault and I just wish I could get the courage to tell him that."

"You want my advice?"

Nat nodded.

"I have no idea why since all of my relationships end up in the gutter or in the ground, but here it is; tell him. The way I see it is that he's going to hear a lot more ugly things said about him. Give him some hope. Hope that you two can try, that you can make something from your mutual self-loathing. God knows someone needs to be happy in this sad mess of a world." Somewhat muted, Mallory sipped at her drink and sighed. "It might as well be you."

And with Mallory's words ringing in her eyes, Natasha kissed Bruce with all of her might. His stunned face was worth it alone.

She stared even harder into his deep eyes. The words were in her head but they would not form. She was not eloquent enough to master the right speech to tell him everything; how strong he was, how much she admired him, how much she wanted him to feel happy and loved and full of hope.

"I adore you." Was all she could manage, her throat closing up with happiness despite the world falling around her. Bruce looked horrified at the thought, a look she knew so well when thinking if he could ever love her back. The look evolved into confusion when she grabbed the thick material of his chest and flung him down the emptiness of the cavern.

The warmth of the day had long since faded from the living room but despite the chill Mallory stayed where she was sitting. She had wrapped herself up in a blanket but the chill of the day still seeped through the gaps, her body heat leeching into the fabric of the sofa. The floorboards creaked above her and Mallory looked up, watching as James pulled a sweater over his head to combat the chill.

"I just got off the phone with Nat." Mallory said and James raised his eyebrows with interest, "They're okay. He's okay."  
James visibly relaxed and pointed backwards, up the stairs. "Your mom is passed out."

Mallory sighed. "Of course she is."

The TV was muted but the scenes still played. The Avengers, reporting the potential loss of one of the team members who for a horrible moment, the pair had believed was Steve. Cutting to scenes of civillians hanging from buildings and jumping onto aircraft's and running from the Ultron clones that had terrorized the village. Scenes of the Avengers in action, Nat with her electric batons, the Hulk tearing through the city, Steve flinging his shield. They were horrific scenes but they were starting to become regular.

"Are you alright?"

Mallory shrugged. She reached over to take a sip from the rum and coke resting gently on the side table. "Yeah."

Not entirely convinced, James crossed the room and switched the TV off, plunging the room into darkness. By the silhouette of the fading light, Mallory watched as James's shape padded over to her. His hand came out and lifted the glass from her hands, and she heard his knees crack lightly as she bent down to her level in front of her.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure. I'm used to death."

She was a doctor after all but James couldn't help but think it was a little barbed comment aimed towards him. They sat silently, watching the scenes when Mallory piped up again.

"Do you want me to turn this off? I can see why it might upset you."

"Steve's fine." James said lightly, unable to tear his eyes away from the scenes of destruction.

"That's not what I meant." He turned to her in the darkness and raised an eyebrow which she saw from the curve of his temples. "I meant it might remind you of… before."

"Before meaning a soldier or a government-sponsored murderer?"

"James-"

"Don't. I… shouldn't take it out on you. I'm sorry."

He felt the soft pressure of her hand. "I understand. I understand why you might feel a little bitter towards me."

"No. What? No." James, sick of being left in the dark, leaned over her and switched on the little lamp. The room flooded with a light and James saw how Mallory's dark eyes were filled with regret. "I'm not bitter towards you. You know that."

"I get why you would be. I mean, you are living with the woman who used to declare you medically fit on those missions."

"I never used to get declared medically fit. The Soviets would just… throw me in front of the barrel of a gun. There was no procedure. I got woken up, I killed, I got put back to sleep." Mallory sat forward. She'd read in the files that the Winter Soldier was at first a Soviet operation turned over to the US after 9/11 and the declaration of the war on terror. It seemed that there was not a war he hadn't partook in. "I had six doctors under American control. Can't even remember their names."

"That's not your fault. Dr. Harriet was before me. They killed her."

It was on the tip of his tongue. They killed her, Mallory had said defensively, her hand reaching out to touch his comfortingly. James jerked away. They meaning HYDRA, meaning Pierce, meaning her piece of shit boyfriend Rumlow. _I killed her, _James wanted to correct her. _I killed my old doctor because she refused to cooperate. And if Pierce had've asked, I would've killed you too. _

Sometimes the guilt pressed down too much on his chest and he couldn't breath. It was happening now and his vision swam with tears. What little light they had in the room allowed her to see it and Mallory sat forwards to take his hands again.

"Hey. Hey. It's okay." Her voice washed over him soothingly and lessened the guilt crushing his voice. "One day it'll all be over. You'll see Steve again and everything will be fine."

He wished he could believe that. He thanked her profusely then went upstairs. The guilt was really starting to overwhelm him. He opened the windows and sat under the cold breeze washing over his skin before he made his decision.

He opened a drawer, got out a pen and some paper and started to write.

A/N: FINALLY I UPDATED. Next update will be in a few hours or tomorrow at the very least. I've seen Civil War and it was amazing (tell me what you thought about it in the comments!) and I've definitely got some ideas about where Mallory will slot in. It might take a while for me to get it started but not too long hopefully! One more chapter and this mini-fic will be done! Thank you for staying with me and my erratic updates! love you all


	10. Dear Mallory

The day after Mallory spent all day ignoring Liam's phone-calls. She knew he wanted to talk about things, about marriage, about moving in together and talking about things after feeling so dejected from last night would be to hard. She betted she'd end up saying something horrible to him.

So she did everything to distract herself from him. Woke up her mother and took her on to a doctors appointment to get her heart tested again for the promise of more booze – this was seriously becoming a problem now. She ran errands all day. Grocery shopping, DIY on fixing that broken bathroom shelf, oiling all of the joints for the doors in the house so they wouldn't squeak… she was so restless and anxious that she even went out for a run after she was finished. Christ she was unfit but as her heart was thudding when she made it back home she felt better. She was so busy she hadn't even spoken to James all day. Hadn't even seen him.

It was only when she was washing the sweat off her body in the shower that it struck her as odd. She had gone days before not speaking to him face to face but he'd always text or call. Sometimes it was even just sending her a little emoji or a picture of something he'd found funny or interesting that day. It was an unspoken agreement between them both – contact always to make sure he was still coping okay. And because they were friends.

Steaming from the shower and dressed only in a little dressing gown with her hair still soaking, she knocked on his door. Her hair dripped onto the floorboards.

"James?" Maybe he was asleep. She opened the door gently, in case she found him mid undressing or… god could she even think it? Mid pleasuring himself. Her look of second hand embarrassment faded when the room was empty. The windows were still open, the large curtains fluttering softly in the wind and the bed was pristine. Almost like he hadn't slept in it.

"MOM!"

Julie didn't answer so Mallory padded back to her mother's bedroom and found her passed out. The room smelt like stale whiskey and two day old sweat. Mallory recoiled then pinched her mother awake.

"Wha'… whassamatter?"

Mallory wrinkled her nose. "Have you seen James today?"

Julie snuggled back into the covers. "Naaaah."

Mallory went back into James's bedroom. It was not unusual for James to be out of the house. He liked to go down the park to go for runs or even go sit in the local Starbucks with a cap on sipping on a venti coffee and watching the people go about their lives. What was unusual was the fact he hadn't said he was leaving.

That's when she saw it. A creamy white envelope set on the bedside table, her name written in James's cursive script. Frowning, Mallory plucked it from the table and tore it open, her wet hair making contact with the ink and ruining the neatness of the handwriting:

_Dear Mallory,_

_I really didn't want to do this face to face. It's not that you don't deserve an explanation. I'm just too ashamed to actually say anything to you because I know you'll convince me to stay. Successfully. I don't think I could ever say no to you. _

_But I didn't want to do it over text or email or anything. Not that these new inventions aren't great, because they are – I can see you in my mind rolling your eyes as I write this. They're just a little impersonal. I think a letter was a nice alternative. You don't get too many letters nowadays. _

_I've been thinking about leaving for __sometime__ a while now. It's not that I'm __unsatisfied__ unhappy with you or your mom or ungrateful with the crazy amount of help you've given me over the year. Because I'm really not. I just can't live here anymore. _

_It's nothing on you. You have been an incredible doctor to me and an even better friend when I didn't deserve any of it. I have done so many terrible, disgusting things to everyone, especially to you and I deserve none of your forgiveness, never mind the love and the welcome you've given me. I just want you to know that. That it's nothing to do with you because you're __incredible__ridiculously nice attractive deserving of more__amazing__. _

_I thought I needed to find __myself__ Bucky before I could see Steve again and I know you disagreed with me because you thought Steve would love me no matter what. I didn't understand it at the time because I'd been the Soldier for so long I didn't just lose my memories or myself as him, I lost what it was like to have a friend. I didn't understand how Steve would still love me as he had. _

_But now I know what it's like. I have you. I understand what you meant. You love me as I am and it reminded me that he will in time. And that gives me hope. I will see you again. That's a promise._

_But not right now. Things are starting to come back properly. My memories are strange and they're starting to scare me. I find I can't concentrate on being a functioning member of society, of being a friend that you need when all I can think about is all of the awful things I've done. I'm dangerous. I could hurt you and I would never want to do that. Staying here would be selfish. _

_Even if you take nothing away from this rambling mess of a letter __which I promise we're near the end now__ and even if you don't ever want to see me again and even if you've stopped caring, I want you to know how thankful I am. Your friendship meant everything to me._

_Thank you, _

_James Buchanan Barnes. _

_PS. Next time we see each other, I think you could call me Bucky. _

Mallory had forgotten to breathe. She imagined him writing this during the night. How the writing had begun shakily but eventually toughened and became smooth. His forehead creasing as he searched for the right word. His tongue between his teeth as he reread what he'd wrote and scratched out the wrong phrases.

_Oh James. Oh Bucky._ She sank into the chair by the desk and held the paper to her chest. Her mouth opened to call for her mother but her mother was too wrapped up in her own misery to share this one. Then, Mallory saw a spiders web in the corner of the room and her brain sparked.

She took the family car to the park, leaving no less than seven messages for Nat to meet her. The redhead turned up half an hour after as Mallory sat with her wet hair tucked into an oversized hoodie. A hoodie, she realized as she watched Nat sashay her way across the park, that was James's. His scent clung to it, wrapping her in a phantom hug that they'd never gotten to share.

"What's wrong?" Nat asked, sinking onto the park bench. Mallory's mouth opened and she hesitated; what was she going to say? _Everything. _I have to tell them everything.

"I have something to tell you."

FOUR MONTHS LATER

Outside of a familiar block of flats, Natasha Romanoff glanced back at Sam in the rear-view mirror of the car.

"Are you sure we have to get her involved?"

Sam's eyebrows creased sympathetically at Nat's words but before he could speak, Wanda beside him cut in.

"You said she was his weakness."

"She is." Sam countered but sighed. "But she's no agent. Or Avenger."  
"I understand she's your friend, Nat." Wanda said, sounding entirely like she didn't quite understand. Natasha didn't blame her for being a little naive; she was young, what did she know about romantic love? "But I understand she knows about moral duty. And why wouldn't she want to bring him down? Didn't he pretend to be in love with her for a while and broke her heart?"

Nat and Sam exchanged uncomfortable glances. Both were sympathetic towards the situation whereas Wanda and Steve were a little more stuck. Steve's anger towards her was understandable. He had initially threw his cup of coffee against the wall when Mallory had repeated the tale she'd told Natasha. _James has been living with me. _Steve had sucked in a breath, thrown the cup then was panting heavily. _All this time and he was under my nose? _Mallory had had the grace to look ashamed. _All this time. I'm so so sorry Steve._

Nat spoke to diffuse the building silence. "It was a little more complicated than that."

"How?"

Nat sighed and pushed her sunglasses up to nestle in her hair. "He fell in love with her. For real."

"You can't seriously believe that." Steve said. Nat glared at him.

"You've seen the footage at S.H.I.E.L.D's old headquarters. You wouldn't be that worried if you hadn't fallen in love."

Steve made a noise of disagreement.

"You'll have to show me when we get back. Are we going?" Wanda made a move to open the door. Sam stopped her and nodded towards Nat.

"I think you should do it. Alone. If we all go in, she might think we're being manipulative."

"I prefer the term relentlessly persuasive." Steve said, then pressed his lips together when Nat met his eyes pleadingly. "Fine. Try and hurry up a little. We're on the clock here."

Nat nodded and stepped out onto the busy street. Cars wove in and out of the road and Nat felt the uncertain prickle of eyes on her. She was too paranoid nowadays.

She'd had eyes on Mallory for a while now. She'd moved back into her old apartment and sent all of Rumlow's old stuff to the big trash heap. She'd even had a hair cut; her tumbling mess was shortened to a bob about three months ago, but was starting to lengthen again. It was a sign of her moving on, properly since she'd moved in with her old boyfriend Liam with the auburn hair. Their relationship seemed curiously flat from a distance; he'd take her hand and she'd find some excuse to drop it, she'd chuckle politely at a joke and look utterly disinterested at him in a restaurant. Nat hoped the relationship fared better when they were alone.

Mallory's apartment was on the fourth floor and Nat climbed each step with growing apprehension. She was just about calculating how she'd annouce herself – knock on the door out of the blue? Phone call first? But the door opened and a man with auburn hair stepped out fixing a cufflink.

"Mal! Get your ass in gear." Liam looked up from the cufflink and stopped walking, halting his path of collision with Nat. "Huh. And you are?"

"Natasha."

"Oh. You're Natasha." His eyes flicked up and down her quickly. "Uhm. We were just-"

"There's a black car outside. Doesn't look like the taxi. Who are you talking too?" Mallory came out, fixing an earring, wearing a short red dress with her new hair curled tightly. "Oh. Nat. Is that your car outside?"

Natasha nodded and said somewhat urgently, "We need to talk."

Mallory looked uncertainly to Liam who sighed. "We'll be late for the reservation."

Mallory looked completely torn, shifting all of her weight on her left foot as she balanced to make a decision. Her eyes flicked between the two before she widened the door and kicked her heels off.

"This'll only take a minute." Mallory promised him fruitlessly. Natasha shook her head.

"A little longer than that."

They stepped inside Mallory's kitschy apartment but Nat didn't sink down on the chairs or ask for coffee. Nat folded her arms and stayed standing, trying to impress upon her dear friend how important this was.

"Is this about James?"

"Your cousin? I thought you said he moved away."

Natasha was glad Liam didn't know any details. "No. It's about someone else. I think you should sit down."

"I'm gonna stay standing, thanks." Mallory's voice hardened and then she softened immediately, her shoulders tight with anxiety. "Nat what happened? What's wrong?"

She had to just say it. "It's Rumlow. He's still alive."

A/N: Thank yo all so much for reading! Look out for the true sequel, Civil War!


End file.
